Perhaps you had a better experience at the local place. Maybe they had a more knowledgeable sales staff that was able to articulate well the benefits of one piece of equipment versus another. There are as many reasons that you would have a good experience there as there are reasons you had a good experience at Best Buy. My point was that because Best Buy has such enormous power with their suppliers, they are in a significantly better position to bargain with those suppliers than a local shop. I would presume it would be pretty difficult for any local shop owner to convince a distributor of name-brand merchandise to pay them to stock those products on their shelves, simply because the buying power of a local shop is not that of Best Buy.

Really, the local operations are getting hit from all angles - online, big box, etc. To me, as the offspring of local business owners, that is disheartening. Like I keep saying throughout this comment thread, it is just a sad thing to watch all of the great little places in your area get driven out of business because of such vicious competition. I am not advocating any kind of corporate welfare here, but when you shop locally, more of your money stays in your area. I invite you to check this out: http://www.localfirstaz.com/local/index.php