See, this is misleading. No one truly complains about paying five percent more for something in person. If it were only five percent mark ups at my local hobby town here in Fort Worth, I'd be in there all the time. But its more like 30 percent. They try to justify it by saying it's what they have to charge to be competitive. But that's just so backwards in thinking to me, if you want to be competitive, Mark your stuff to move. I swear, I've not seen any new kits in my local store in probably four months. Even when they occasionally mark them down to sell, they're still ridiculously priced. There's never any good sales strategies going on to boost business or move old stock to circulate new stuff, and more often than not, the minor things that I do go there for are out of stock.... For weeks. Sorry, but if that's all the motivation you've got to succeed, then expect to be out of business quickly. I do understand the idea of getting behind a business, but I have a hard time trying to support a business who isn't even trying to help it's own cause. As far as the whole "show rooming" debate, the fat old dude who runs the main counter at our hobby town seems clueless. I can count four occasions where a customer asked a question and he gave them terrible recommendations. I helped every single one of them make a better purchase for their buck by being able to personally tell them the pros and cons of each. Add to that the fact that they crapped on me about the rewards points program (which is pretty much intrinsically worthless as far as savings go anyways) by telling me that somewhere along the way they'd opened two accounts for me, but wouldn't merge the points between the two. These days they don't even ask customers anymore for their hobby town points card, which is sad because they've either done away with the system or are so damn scared of losing a few cents on their already ridiculously priced stuff that they won't mention it. I saw a Hasegawa F-22 recently that was still priced for 90 bucks, which is what Hasegawa thought they were going to get for it initially until everyone saw the ram patterns. These days I could cover the cost of two of them, plus shipping online for less than that same cost. Again... When are they adjusting costs? Just because it was 39 dollars three years ago when you put it on your shelf doesn't mean it still is. In fact, it's probably now selling everywhere else for 14 bucks, which is why it'll sit on the shelf for another six years. They just come across as extremely lazy. They want our money, but they don't want to work for it. As a consumer, that's extremely insulting. I'd rather plan ahead, place an order for a fair prices on the stuff I need in advance, pay ten bucks to ship any and everything I can throw in the cart and be headache free. Probably not the popular answer, as I really do enjoy a good brick and mortar store. But I also absolutely refuse to spend stupidly, simply to say I've patronized a failing business whos not doing anything themselves to stop the train from coming at them.