As far as the margin on a lot of this stuff I will tell you that Marine Depot is probably making a bigger percentage of profit margin than your local store would have been. Marine Depot buys at distributor level and then deals it directly to consumer. The store has to buy it from the wholesaler who buys at distributor level and then marks it up to sell to the store. Now maybe the local store can sell 2 of these a month if they are lucky even if they were selling them at their cost so they aren't going to get much of a break on the price from the local wholesaler unless they decide to buy more than they could sell in a year. Some manufacturers are working on setting minimum advertised prices to help level the playing field for local stores but there is a huge over estimation on where the stores margin is. The mark up is in live goods not dry goods. I guarantee that most stores are operating on much smaller margins than say Walmart. I just find it funny how many people walk into a mom and pop store and want a special price on things but will walk into Walmart fill up their cart and never think twice about the price.