Double a products' cost is normal retail procedure. You say three dollars is a lot. Really? Why don't you ask a couple of shops what they put out for rent, insurance, wages, utilities, not to mention out o pocket losses when most game companies and now comics too, are late with product. Product that the merchant had to prepay for.

The two biggest thing that kill shops are lack of diversity in product, and location. Location is a big deal, but it is also tied to cost of rent.

Pick your favorite shop, and support them. A good reailer will help you find that issue or figure. He'll set your books aside for you, so you don't miss them. Online you have to worries. One that postage will put you back where you started anyway, and two, that eventually someone is going to steal your credit card number.

Not to mention some e-places won't cover lost in the mail items.

Finally, at a store you can actually see what you are buying, and you won't have to worry about return postage.

I thought most distribitures gave prices on how much a store buys. For example for comics they give 25% off for 50 and 35% off for 100 and so on (These are rough estimates since I don't know the real numbers). So your local venue can buy boosters for about $220 per case, while the on-line places buy over 100 cases at a time so they may be paying less per case.