i support my lhs when i can and with stuff that they have. but if the product is overpriced, say $40-$50 or more (this price difference happens mostly on kits, radios, etc.), i buy it online to save money. i don't make a lot of money, so i have to save when i can.
but i think about it this way:
say i bought a kit and saved $40 from the internet....
lhs didn't make say about $60-$80 from me because i didn't buy it from them.
on the other hand, because i bought a kit, i needed small things like battery pack, switch, servos, servo tape, paint, etc. which i pick up mostly at the lhs (so they now made money)
then i race that car every week ($10/race=$40/month) at the lhs' race track (yet another gain for them)
off course, fuel, bodies and all the "consumables" are from lhs also (another plus)
so in the end, i look at it as a win-win scenario for both me and the lhs. i want to support as much as i can, but it's just to hard to swallow sometimes, especially when the difference is a lot like $80 or more. that $80 can buy a lot of stuff like spare tires, body, paint, etc. but then again, the $80 i may have saved would probably go to the lhs anyways for those misc. stuff.
