So you wanted a mech today to finish a build. You therefore wanted one right away.
You then want a shop who has staff to pay, rent to pay, insurance to pay, electricity to pay, water and sewerge rates to pay, have varied and hopefully interesting stock and be able to answer questions you may ask of them to sell a margin generating item for the same price or near to the same price as CRC (or other web retailers) who admittedly have all these bills and huge computer resources to finance BUT enormous buying power and the ability to sell items at BELOW normal trade levels.
Shops have a trade price – this covers the item itself. The gap between retail and trade is the bit that allows people to pay all the bills and if they are lucky and good hopefully walk home at night knowing they have made a profit rather than just supply goods to people who want everything NOW for nothing.
The big retailers do a great job of bringing goods to the market for not much money to be fair. Perhaps you want an industry of just web retailers? Is it all about price? Do you always want to wait for a postie?
Begrudging a man a living from a shop he has toiled to build – and making him come close to a price he cannot compete with is effectively the same as your employer asking you to work for free for a day cause he knows with a bit of digging he can save your wage by employing someone else. Not fair really.
Recently i have been asked to discount labour bills in the shop. I ask them if they were to be asked to work for less money would they? Invariably the answer is no.
The same can be said of goods. Should a retailer just have to give away margin on a good and service that is not the same? Not really.
I find by treating people fairly, generating relationships and being honest with people then things kind of work out. If people come in quoting prices off the web then its usually a case of asking them if they can 'try the shoes on through the web' or 'check compatibility of x with y' on a computer screen.
If you know what you need and its purely a price thing then fine – the www is for you.
Incoherent rambling mode off! Apologies for lack of synthesis and trailling off the point. Just thought an open slagging of Woodrups (who i dont know) is a bit unfair.