Lloyd Bailey is the owner of Lloyd Bailey’s Scuba and Watersports in Gainsville, Florida. Since 1973 Lloyd has been professionally involved in aquatic sports and recreation, teaching scuba, sailing, water safety and life guarding. In 1981 Lloyd dipped into the realm of scuba retail and has never looked back. Having used Oceanic products for his own personal diving since the companies birth, it was an easy choice as a brand to choose to bring into his dive shop. Oceanic has been the primary line in Lloyd Bailey’s Scuba since 1984 and more recently brought the additional AUP lines in with Hollis in 2009, and AERIS/OceanPro/Lavacore in 2010.
Lloyd is in a somewhat unusual situation in which he is carrying the whole AUP family (Oceanic, AERIS, Hollis, OceanPro and Lavacore) of products within his store. Before acquiring the full AUP line Llyod was “carrying other secondary companies to fill holes in [his] inventory”. Lloyd talked about how the different lines worked together within his store and said that when “Oceanic started carrying wetsuits it helped me maintain my primary brand”. OceanPro is fulfilling smaller sizes and catering to kids while the “AERIS competitive package has worked well” and doing a great job as a secondary/supplemental alternative to Oceanic. Instead of looking to multiple companies to fill holes in his supply Lloyd says “I’d rather do more business with one company. It’s a no-brainer. I like AUP, I like Bob Hollis, and I like my rep Buddy Brown.” Its has become easy for Lloyd to recommend products that he believes in and a company which has supported his diving since day one.
Lavacore was given high reviews and was talked up in many testimonials. Lloyd jumped on the board with the hot new brand and found that “Lavacore is everything they said it would be.” Lloyd makes it a point to always personally test out as much of the equipment that he carries in his store. Products come from different manufactures and are sometimes great, ok, bad and even horrible. “I used Lavacore myself and its comfortable. I tested it myself and its great and easy to recommend.”
Lloyd also recently got back from visiting the headquarters in San Leandro, CA for a dealer seminar and factory tour. Lloyd had a lot to say about AUP and its staff, mentioning that “I like the people who work there…they treat the dealers well, and everybody who works there is loyal to the company and happy to work there. ” The bottom line is that Lloyd chooses AUP because he “trusts Bob Hollis, AUP and the products they make”.
“The Products. The People” Its an easy decision” -Lloyd Bailey
