Seems all brick and mortar stores are being abandoned in droves these days. All the younger set is ordering on line using a bank account. There is a trend of not using cash or in person sales as of late. That buisness model seems to be dying. Who needs a lazy expensive-to-maintain employee on the sales floor when the consumer can do all the work on a computer from their home anyway!
That's a rhetorical question right?
You make a good point but it's not always about employees or laziness and here's my personal experience with that.
While we live in SC we have had a place in Johnson City, TN for years ... our family mountain summer place (actually in Jonesborough). For years I could buy over the counter from Widener's when in town and I would order big, pick up at their warehouse, pay with cash, everybody knew me, Dad, my sons, et al .... life was good. It was a family thing.
Then they got bought-out by some big holding group or, as some locals prefer ... they sold us out). The moment they did, the new owners shut-down in-person pick-ups, closed the counter sales, locked the front door and that was that. Nothing goes out of there these days except Fed Ex and UPS.
Locally ....
We have a huge reloading club here in central SC ... I dunno how many members but more members than the beekeeping club and HAM club combined ... 100s of dues paying members. We used to get some great group buys together! Anyways, 24 months ago we had a number of stores servicing our reloading habits. We had Sligh's, several True Value/ACE Hardwares, Sportsman's Warehouse, Academy, Shooter's Choice and PSA. Three of those considered big box stores of course and we had plenty of stock to choose from. We could pay cash in all of them. (We also have a Cabela's one hour to the west in Augusta and a Bass Pro one hour to the north in Charlotte not to mention the plethora of LGS shops in both of those cities). Heck, we even still had Wally World/China Mart selling ammo 24 months ago ... think about how much things have changed in 24 months.
Sligh's has since been shut down by the ATF. Shooter's Choice has been booming gun sales but unable to get reloading supplies ... none, and I know the buyer over there personally. All of the big box stores have had bare shelves in the reloading supplies for over a year. No Conservative Patriots even bother going to Dick's anymore ... a name never more befitting of a corporate entity. Every once in awhile a couple of things show-up at the ACE/True Value stores through their massive Do It Best distribution center here in town.
So we've all been forced to buy online, pay with electronic money, pay huge hazmat and shipping and handling fees ... we've had no choice.
Some of us were prepared, others were/are not and apparently they, those others, intend to wait until things get back to the old normal ... and that's never going to happen, not ever. It may get better, it probably will .... but the new normal will be way more expensive than it was 24 months ago.
You can bet the local stores are going to be way more expensive. They've lewrned their lessons. We're already hearing how they're doing the math and saving hazmat and shipping fees but chsrging more ... increasing their profit margin ... because reloading components are no longer a niche item, not they're traffic bait.
Our world has changed.
A lot of stores are no longer accepting cash ... why? Germs. Plain and simple ... germs.
It's never going back to what it was just 24 months ago.
Think about that.