Nobody wants to see a business (in reality a family) fail so please take my comments with that in mind. That said, small businesses generally fail due to problems that frequently include bad location, low demand for products, lack of products, a bad business model, and bad management. Most of the LDS's I have been in suffer from at least 3 of the above off the bat on the day they open.
If someone opens a small dive shop in the middle of Ohio then they should likely be checked for sanity because they already likely suffer from FOUR of the above issues I mentioned. I'll assume they are the nicest most professional people in the world and that they have decent prices.:blinking: If that same LDS then complains about the internet killing them, well I can't help them no matter how much over priced stuff I buy from them or how nice or cool they are.
I feel for them, honestly I do but just because they are a small business doesn't mean they get an excuse for making a bad career choice. That's kinda like an actor blaming the world because they never became the next Brad Pitt. The odds for having a continually profitable LDS are very low, maybe lower than becoming the next Brad Pitt.
So the real question is why in the heck would anyone open a small LDS in Ohio this economy in the first place?
Btw, the fact that we are having this discussion on the internet doesn't do much for the above LDS. It does however point out that we live in a different world than we used to and "local" has a new definition.
I wish all the LDS's good luck and I hope they survive but they are up against a wall for sure in this global economy.