Shopping locally

I'm all for shopping locally except when it seems the local store is trying to take advantage of people.

We have an authorized Cingular store in town. When we were looking to get Paul a phone a year ago we went to them after looking online. We walked in and asked which "free phones" they had in stock. Cingular's site offered the choice of almost 20 phones free with activation. The store closest to us didn't offer any, the cheapest one they had in-stock was $50 with a 2 year contract. Needless to say we signed up online and received the phone in the mail in 3 days.

Paul needs a new battery for his phone. We did a little bit of research online and found a number of batteries that will work, the price was between $4 and $20 depending on the brand and strength. I called the store here in town, they want $50 for the $4 battery I found online! We've decided to just order the battery and pay shipping since we will save ourselves around $40.

I really don't know how this place in town stays in business!