Hi Luke: I shop locally when I can, and if I can afford it. One of the films I shoot is $10.70 a roll locally and $4.90 through B&H. I could buy one roll at a time from them, pay shipping, and still come out ahead, and of course I usually put in a large order. And some of the chemistry and paper simply isn't stocked locally anymore. Moreover, the two local camera stores don't carry Olympus stuff, except used. I shop with them, but not as much as I used to. The realities of the market have changed what they can offer, very often at substantially inflated prices. 10 or 20 % more is one thing. 200% the price just ain't doable for this poor man.
I do, however, get all my LP's locally (from a place called "We Buy Music" and the local library sales, to be sure), except for a few I had to rustle up over-seas.
Almost all the local bookstores have been put out of business by the big chains (including my partner's), which are now in turn falling like dominoes because of online offerings. Even the used bookstores have been hit hard. Books and records in particular, I like to thumb through and hold before I purchase, but it's getting harder to do. I bought my first three digital cameras locally, but haven';t been able to do so since, and I did get my first m4/3 the E-P1 with a couple of lenses, through Amazon. The "Monde Diplomatique" I mentioned above that I get for Kindle now, I got for years in paper from a Newsstand, across from the University, that went out of business a couple of years ago. taking most access to current foreign journals with them. I don't like it all.
