I too get torn with this decision. I do feel a need to try and support my LHS's as much as possible. Mostly for selfish reasons I must admit. Plain & simple I want him to still be there when I need him. I don't want to be in the position of having to order & wait for delivery of every little item that I might need. In other words I don't want to have to order things like props & glow plugs from Tower or any other online source. I like the luxury of knowing there are 2 LHS within a short distance of my house. Both are owned & operated by very nice people that I have become freinds with so I do try to patronize them when ever I can. One store is new, they just opened up a HobbyTown USA shop this year. They are right here in town less than 5 minutes away. The owners have proven to be very nice people & I like them a lot. They recognized right away that I am heavily into these airplanes & have treated me as a "special" customer from the day they opened the doors. The other shop is owned by one of club Instructors & his wife who both have also become very good friends to my entire family. Their shop is about 20 minutes away in the next town east of me. So I try to support them as much as I can too. I don't bring in adds & try to get them to price match. What I do is buy any & all the smaller items I might need locally trying to share my business between the two shops as equally as I can. I am on a very tight budget right now though because I have been on dissability for coming up on a year now. So when it comes to bigger purchases like ARFs I shop around & buy from the best price I can find. I have to. That usually means buying online. I'd much rather buy an ARF from the LHS because I like to open the box & inspect it very closely, especially the covering job. But if it means saving a substantial amount of money by purchasing online then that is what I have to do. If I could afford it I would buy everything locally but I just can't do it. So I spread it out as best that I can & I think they know & understand my situation because I am still treated as a "special" customer at both shops.