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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 1622923" data-attributes="member: 891">Why should I care about the FLGS? Really, why?In the 'Eberron rocks' thread there was <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1608773&postcount=52" target="_blank">this off topic note</a>:I would say yes.I could say that I'm not a socialist, so sure, let em die... welcome to capitalism - it isn't just about letting the publisher charge your pants off, it's also about undercutting their price whenever you can.But to look at it another way, why doesn't my local shop go online and compete with the same prices?A lot of online vendors are themselves small businesses - so the anti-corporate types among us can feel justified there. Many of them sar so small that when you call customer service you can hear the kids watching TV while the person on the phone changes the baby's diaper while taking down your info.I've been there on that one.Amazon might be an exception, but it has the Z-Shops which are small businesses who sell the same product as it sells at even better prices.Small businesses... that still manage to stay in profit and undercut even amazon.eBay is a giant monolith, but it's one made up of little tiny ants... about as small direct business as you can get.Again, small businesses that can give me the price I want and stay in profit doing it. On eBay, everything sells for -EXACTLY- what it is worth, at that very moment. No more and no less.What do I need the local shop for?A place to game? No, a house provide better privacy.A chance to learn about gaming? No, the internet gives me that, and no matter how rude the flames I might get - it'll still not only be more polite but look and smell better as well.A chance to meet fellow gamers? The people who hang out in game stores scare me... They should scare you too, and if they don't, then you scare me. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Sure it's nice to walk in and look at the product, to impulse buy from time to time. It's nice to go in and get a copy of say, Eberron, and not worry about a printing error... But this is after all capitalism we're dealing with, and if the local shop wants to stay, it had better get competitive. Some of those online little guys have no store front, but some of them do.Now if you're going online and buying it from Walmart then I'm all with those you say you're doing the wrong thing, but not because of the local store issue - I have other reasons for that that would probably violate the rules of this forum against talking about real life...But if you go online, and you buy it from somebody who's actually got meat attached to their name, or somebody who supports people who do - then I see nothing wrong with you, and I see nothing wrong with your desire to find the best price and, frankly, the superior customer service an online vendor will give (there's a reason for the 'F' in 'FLGS' and it ain't friendly...).</blockquote>

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