Sorry to see a LDS go but I don’t see the internet connection. A good reg last decades, my 40 year old Conshelf is still serving on my pony, wet suits 5-10 years, my son is still using my 20 year old BC. Even if I bought all our gear in a LDS divided up over the years it’s not enough to feed a dive shop crew. I love NESS too, wish it was closer, bought BP&W hardware there, two regs and SPG’s and they have a better selection and prices than most internet shops plus they sell used gear, don’t even think about buy used gear on Craigs List!
What LDS need to do to stay in business is customer service, trips both local and vacation, classes, info nights, old dive related movies nights just to get traffic in the shop, a dive club to keep their divers active and again generate traffic in the shop. Discover Scuba, a not so LDS I sometimes use has a Discover Scuba night at a school pool where certified divers can use the deep end to practice skills, check equipment or just get wet. They put out a spread and it’s amazing how many divers show up when there is food involved :) Offer Discover Scuba classes to Boy/Girl Scouts, Civil Air Patrol, etc., these are the kids coming into our sport.
Clean up dives, invite local groups to help with shore support and this introduses them to diving. The more your divers dive the more they come to the shop for service to more they see impulse items for sale, things they hadn’t thought they needed until they saw it and it’s right there, no need to search online.
The LDS needs to become a place in your life like Cheers where everyone knows your name and you stop by every week just to see what’s going on!
If I had a shop I would set aside an area for local service and enviromental groups to get their message out, send pictures with a story to the local media each time the display changes, this brings non divers into the shop, the same type of people who become divers :)