My favorite LQS went out of business in August. I have only been quilting for a little less that 4 years, but in that time, 7 shops have gone out of business. Most of them for reasonable reasons - retirement, moving, and so on. But for the rest, I guess they just could not keep up with the online competition. I believe the LQS can't compete with the prices from online shops. They don't have the volume to do so. And when these local shops go out of business, we don't just lose a place to purchase material, we lose all the human resources affiliated with the shop.