I don't buy it for a second that getting rid of MSRP is good for the consumer. That's basically giving less information and saying that less information is good for us when their entire problem has been a lack of communication, bad set design, and refusal to improve card quality in the long term due to financial pressure from the stockholders.
Not to mention, this just looks like them trying to get even further away from the possibility of admitting there is a secondary market.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
i've heard a couple of smart people say something along these lines:
removing MSRP allows WotC to approach the idea of reprints without having to worry about acknowledging the secondary market (i.e. the value of individual cards can be derived from the value of a sealed product, if there's a difference in MSRP between one box of 60 cards and another, despite costing the same to produce and intrinsically having the same value) or falling foul of gambling restrictions in some places.
I guess the implication is that we'll be seeing more reprints, and after-market value isn't going to be a barrier.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
is it cause people were outraged on the ultimate masters msrp ?
now they can just increase the prices and blame distributors ? or will the distributors use the intransparency to increase the prices as well ? i mean it is what they already do. best example are commander products, where favorite commanders had higher prices, even above msrp. while i understood that online, i was allways disappointed if stores did that. cause they sold the less popular commander decks not under msrp but at msrp and the others just above. thats when u feel uncomfortable as a customer and i refuse to buy products there.
in my opinion the msrp for magic products and the current quality was way to high. i have the bad feeling getting rid of msrp is to put more fog on this issue instead of solving problems.
Wow, nice way to be shady
MSRP greatly helped me and my friend not getting screwed by our LSG... i guess i need to find another store or just stick with buying online
idk if that was meant to help non-american customers, because american can buy from low prices from target, while others can't
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Market sets the MSRP. If we refuse to buy packs at more than 3.99 MSRP is 3.99.
And yet if we refuse to buy at $3.99 they still try won’t go below a certain point so they can still make some profit. And they were already paying lower than $3.99 for packs so they could make profit. And WotC won’t sell below a certain point so they can still make a profit.
So what is the point of removing MSRP when the while point of it is to ensure that profits can be made by the involved parties?
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
Market sets the MSRP. If we refuse to buy packs at more than 3.99 MSRP is 3.99.
And yet if we refuse to buy at $3.99 they still try won’t go below a certain point so they can still make some profit. And they were already paying lower than $3.99 for packs so they could make profit. And WotC won’t sell below a certain point so they can still make a profit.
So what is the point of removing MSRP when the while point of it is to ensure that profits can be made by the involved parties?
FYI, there is a thread already in the General section on this topic. Seeing how boosters are rarely sold at MSRP from online markets at preorder or even now for current Standard, it makes MSRP redundant. Will this allow for some shady LGS price gouging, sure. However, people are more connected online to know what prices are and can shop elsewhere.
I feel this is part of typical corporate policy changes that should have minimal impact on the player. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out especially when more info comes out on future sets and the rumored online MtG marketplace that WotC is creating to sell product. I think that website will be more disrupting than removing MSRP for LGSs.
Can't help thinking this is just going to lead to players being even more fleeced for cash. At least when all the Challenger Decks had an MSRP of... £25? £30? Can't remember. But anyway, when they were all low, it made it clear the stores trying to sell the Hazoret deck for £45+ were blatantly profiteering. Now there'll be no standard to hold them to, or brake on them just ratcheting the price up as high as they damned well like
Is there a place people can find the average ROI on a single pack?
Given the market price of each card, multiplied by it's chance to be opened, put together in a way that makes a full pack, blah blah blah, you get the average value in a pack of cards. Right? Any sites that do that? Just compare it to the price for a pack at your LGS and realize that typically ROI is less than the price of a pack else more packs would be opened (unless I'm missing some gap in thought).
Yeah MSRP is more to help the consumer. WOTC is doing this cause they don't want to get attacked for stuff like Commander where they raised the price and then printed no value in reprints and underpowered legendaries on top of it. Replete with one fan favorite Oldwalker and A creative Neowalker.
The real problem is that this gives free reign to places like Amazon. Not to mention distributors can now charge whatever they want for a box depending on how much demand there is on the product. WoTC is starting up a website to sell directly to consumers, so that should hypothetically temper prices, but that is likely for specialty products only.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I work at a comic/cards store and we mostly go by MSRP, but will change the price depending on how well a product sells. Rarely do we up the price of sealed product unless it's rare and scarce (we go by TCGplayer pricing). The cost of packs for us is about 2.20 to 2.40 typically. Selling at $3.99 gives us about a 50% profit most of the time, if a little more. For seemingly no reason at all (minus the excuses from WOTC that I personally don't believe), Ultimate Masters packs cost us around 7.80.
What I worry about for future products is the possibility of price hiking, forcing stores to mark up their product, which ultimately puts the blame on us. This also seems like another way of pushing people towards MTG Arena which seems to be the cheaper alternative to paper Magic. This is all just speculation, but I don't feel like WOTC has been very LGS or consumer friendly, lately.
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EDH/Commander: UWB - Sen Triplets RWG - Gishath, Sun's Avatar BR - Rakdos, Lord of Riots WBG - Anafenza, the Foremost
I currently don't have any Standard decks but I'm building back into the format with the new Ravnica block!
I don't buy it for a second that getting rid of MSRP is good for the consumer. That's basically giving less information and saying that less information is good for us when their entire problem has been a lack of communication, bad set design, and refusal to improve card quality in the long term due to financial pressure from the stockholders.
Not to mention, this just looks like them trying to get even further away from the possibility of admitting there is a secondary market.
Seems like WotC's only delaying the inevitable at this point since they know the Reserve List isn't going to sustain itself any longer for players to actually afford it which explains the recent rise of Chinese Counterfeits that are an existential threat to Paper Magic. What's even scarier is that WotC doesn't seem to have a problem with this even though the holo-stamp foils on modern Rares and Mythics suggest otherwise.
The stockholders obviously have their sights set on Arena which explains the current financial pressure to improve card quality for Paper Magic because they're probably afraid that the FTC will go after them once they're done investigating digital loot boxes. It's doubtful it will get very far due to how American legislation is. As for getting rid of MSRP, turns out it may be just as much of a threat towards the Singles Market as it is for Sealed Products.
Another reason for getting rid of the MSRP is probably retribution against Local Game Store owners for selling participation packs / cards online by hosting events that never really took place which explains why WotC kept releasing supplementary products to make up for the damage that these Local Game Store owners had made by being the straw that broke the camel's back in regards to their relationship with each other.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I don't know about other LGS, but mine sell things at MSRP. Yes, it's only a suggestive number, but some stores abide it so they don't overcharge their customers, in some cases such as EDH precons they allow average people to get good reprints at affordable prices, at least at the initial release.
It's almost as if WotC continues to want big shops like Walmart to buy bulk and sell cheap, at the expense of LGS. Do they really believe Arena can replace LGS, online gaming replacing face-to-face MtG?
I don't know about you but I think the era of the LGS is on the close. They cost money to run, to keep open, and require people to show up to buy product to keep the store going. The problem is that American consumers are quite fickle and lazy. A convenient alternative like Arena will do great damage to gaming stores simply because it removes a lot of hassle from the average gaming outing; physical copies of product, expenditure in time and gas and money, being packed into a battered area in a strip mall that reeks of dank weed and a lack of personal hygiene, not being pressured by the owner or staff to buy product. Most LGS's remind me of museums anyway; boxes and boxes of stuff all stacked up and put on shelves to gather dust and molder without anyone showing the slightest interest whatsoever.
Seems like WotC's only delaying the inevitable at this point since they know the Reserve List isn't going to sustain itself any longer for players to actually afford it which explains the recent rise of Chinese Counterfeits that are an existential threat to Paper Magic. What's even scarier is that WotC doesn't seem to have a problem with this even though the holo-stamp foils on modern Rares and Mythics suggest otherwise.
The stockholders obviously have their sights set on Arena which explains the current financial pressure to improve card quality for Paper Magic because they're probably afraid that the FTC will go after them once they're done investigating digital loot boxes. It's doubtful it will get very far due to how American legislation is. As for getting rid of MSRP, turns out it may be just as much of a threat towards the Singles Market as it is for Sealed Products.
Another reason for getting rid of the MSRP is probably retribution against Local Game Store owners for selling participation packs / cards online by hosting events that never really took place which explains why WotC kept releasing supplementary products to make up for the damage that these Local Game Store owners had made by being the straw that broke the camel's back in regards to their relationship with each other.
Stockholders want to see positive sales and profit margin growth. Arena/MTGO may have lower sales, for now, but the margin is likely much higher than paper. Paper has huge amount of sales but lower margin (compared to Arena/MTGO) mainly due to distribution costs. Distribution is really the piece that needs to be optimized in WotC's perspective to keep costs down to improve that margin. As more and more product gets distributed by big retailers (e.g. Walmart) and big online distributors (e.g. Amazon, eBay), the need for an LGS to distribute the product is becoming less. WotC can directly deal with Walmart and Amazon without the need of regional distributors to then distribute to an LGS and make the final sale.
The following numbers are just to illustrate my point. Let's assume the cost to make one Standard booster box landed is 10USD. WotC then sells booster box somewhere between 40-60USD to a regional distributor, the distributor will sell it for around 72USD. The LGS can then make the final sale at whatever price, let's say 95USD for an average Standard box. All of these numbers would be a percentage of an MSRP or whatever number they want. If WotC can cut out the middleman (regional distributor or LGS) then they can sell the box for more thus improving the margin. So Wotc sells box for around 72USD to Walmart or Amazon, and they can sell it directly for 95USD. That is a significant jump in margin and shareholders would rejoice. Having their own online store to sell will improve margins as well even with all the other costs associated with website maintenance and packaging. All of the website rumors and the loss of the MSRP is pointing to a distribution overhaul at WotC.
Players need a place to play the paper Magic yes, but WotC gets money from mainly sealed product sales. As long as product sells, they don't care where you play the game (kitchen table, library, lunch table, street corner, etc). The role of an LGS may be changing from a needed avenue to sell to the consumer to now direct-to-consumer.
I don't know about you but I think the era of the LGS is on the close. They cost money to run, to keep open, and require people to show up to buy product to keep the store going. The problem is that American consumers are quite fickle and lazy. A convenient alternative like Arena will do great damage to gaming stores simply because it removes a lot of hassle from the average gaming outing; physical copies of product, expenditure in time and gas and money, being packed into a battered area in a strip mall that reeks of dank weed and a lack of personal hygiene, not being pressured by the owner or staff to buy product. Most LGS's remind me of museums anyway; boxes and boxes of stuff all stacked up and put on shelves to gather dust and molder without anyone showing the slightest interest whatsoever.
You realize if every LGS closed, Magic would just die right? Arena and MTGO wouldn't keep it's corpse afloat.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Didn't they do this once before a long time ago? Maybe I'm thinking of another company.
End of the day, I really don't care what "other parts of the world" think about this, but this is going to end poorly with select stores jacking up prices well beyond reason and driving business to places like WalMart.
I don't know about you but I think the era of the LGS is on the close. They cost money to run, to keep open, and require people to show up to buy product to keep the store going. The problem is that American consumers are quite fickle and lazy. A convenient alternative like Arena will do great damage to gaming stores simply because it removes a lot of hassle from the average gaming outing; physical copies of product, expenditure in time and gas and money, being packed into a battered area in a strip mall that reeks of dank weed and a lack of personal hygiene, not being pressured by the owner or staff to buy product. Most LGS's remind me of museums anyway; boxes and boxes of stuff all stacked up and put on shelves to gather dust and molder without anyone showing the slightest interest whatsoever.
You realize if every LGS closed, Magic would just die right? Arena and MTGO wouldn't keep it's corpse afloat.
I would express the hope that it would NOT die, but would, instead, merely transition into a lesser-played version of itself.
Why is it always this all or nothing approach in gaming business? Either you're making billions or it's just not worth it to bother? What happened to being proud of modest successes and stability?
Didn't they do this once before a long time ago? Maybe I'm thinking of another company.
End of the day, I really don't care what "other parts of the world" think about this, but this is going to end poorly with select stores jacking up prices well beyond reason and driving business to places like WalMart.
Is that really such a bad thing? If a store decides to be greedy and demand more money for a product that isn't worth the new price, the only group that's really going to be hurt by this is the store itself. If Walmart and Target can offer better prices for packs and decks, why wouldn't you want to shop there?
Is that really such a bad thing? If a store decides to be greedy and demand more money for a product that isn't worth the new price, the only group that's really going to be hurt by this is the store itself. If Walmart and Target can offer better prices for packs and decks, why wouldn't you want to shop there?
Walmart and Target don't offer anything other than sales. And there's a lot more to MTG (and other gaming hobbies) than just buying cards. That's why I buy my CCG/TTRPG/etc... at my local store, because they offer things like tournaments, a friendly environment, tables to play at for free, and so on.
While yes, a store that drastically marked things up would probably not meet the "friendly" definition of a FLGS, we do have a store in town that already radically marks things up, and it's still strongly in business.
The reverse is also a problem, big-dollar box stores can mark down product to a level where FLGS stores simply cannot compete.
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Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
I don't buy it for a second that getting rid of MSRP is good for the consumer. That's basically giving less information and saying that less information is good for us when their entire problem has been a lack of communication, bad set design, and refusal to improve card quality in the long term due to financial pressure from the stockholders.
Not to mention, this just looks like them trying to get even further away from the possibility of admitting there is a secondary market.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
removing MSRP allows WotC to approach the idea of reprints without having to worry about acknowledging the secondary market (i.e. the value of individual cards can be derived from the value of a sealed product, if there's a difference in MSRP between one box of 60 cards and another, despite costing the same to produce and intrinsically having the same value) or falling foul of gambling restrictions in some places.
I guess the implication is that we'll be seeing more reprints, and after-market value isn't going to be a barrier.
... I'm afraid you've misunderstood what MSRP means....
here, read the wiki
now they can just increase the prices and blame distributors ? or will the distributors use the intransparency to increase the prices as well ? i mean it is what they already do. best example are commander products, where favorite commanders had higher prices, even above msrp. while i understood that online, i was allways disappointed if stores did that. cause they sold the less popular commander decks not under msrp but at msrp and the others just above. thats when u feel uncomfortable as a customer and i refuse to buy products there.
in my opinion the msrp for magic products and the current quality was way to high. i have the bad feeling getting rid of msrp is to put more fog on this issue instead of solving problems.
MSRP greatly helped me and my friend not getting screwed by our LSG... i guess i need to find another store or just stick with buying online
idk if that was meant to help non-american customers, because american can buy from low prices from target, while others can't
And yet if we refuse to buy at $3.99 they still try won’t go below a certain point so they can still make some profit. And they were already paying lower than $3.99 for packs so they could make profit. And WotC won’t sell below a certain point so they can still make a profit.
So what is the point of removing MSRP when the while point of it is to ensure that profits can be made by the involved parties?
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
FYI, there is a thread already in the General section on this topic. Seeing how boosters are rarely sold at MSRP from online markets at preorder or even now for current Standard, it makes MSRP redundant. Will this allow for some shady LGS price gouging, sure. However, people are more connected online to know what prices are and can shop elsewhere.
I feel this is part of typical corporate policy changes that should have minimal impact on the player. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out especially when more info comes out on future sets and the rumored online MtG marketplace that WotC is creating to sell product. I think that website will be more disrupting than removing MSRP for LGSs.
To clarify better stand packs 3.99 after this I think standard sets after war of the spark will still be 3.99
Given the market price of each card, multiplied by it's chance to be opened, put together in a way that makes a full pack, blah blah blah, you get the average value in a pack of cards. Right? Any sites that do that? Just compare it to the price for a pack at your LGS and realize that typically ROI is less than the price of a pack else more packs would be opened (unless I'm missing some gap in thought).
"Reveal a Dragon"
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What I worry about for future products is the possibility of price hiking, forcing stores to mark up their product, which ultimately puts the blame on us. This also seems like another way of pushing people towards MTG Arena which seems to be the cheaper alternative to paper Magic. This is all just speculation, but I don't feel like WOTC has been very LGS or consumer friendly, lately.
UWB - Sen Triplets
RWG - Gishath, Sun's Avatar
BR - Rakdos, Lord of Riots
WBG - Anafenza, the Foremost
I currently don't have any Standard decks but I'm building back into the format with the new Ravnica block!
The stockholders obviously have their sights set on Arena which explains the current financial pressure to improve card quality for Paper Magic because they're probably afraid that the FTC will go after them once they're done investigating digital loot boxes. It's doubtful it will get very far due to how American legislation is. As for getting rid of MSRP, turns out it may be just as much of a threat towards the Singles Market as it is for Sealed Products.
Another reason for getting rid of the MSRP is probably retribution against Local Game Store owners for selling participation packs / cards online by hosting events that never really took place which explains why WotC kept releasing supplementary products to make up for the damage that these Local Game Store owners had made by being the straw that broke the camel's back in regards to their relationship with each other.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
It's almost as if WotC continues to want big shops like Walmart to buy bulk and sell cheap, at the expense of LGS. Do they really believe Arena can replace LGS, online gaming replacing face-to-face MtG?
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
Stockholders want to see positive sales and profit margin growth. Arena/MTGO may have lower sales, for now, but the margin is likely much higher than paper. Paper has huge amount of sales but lower margin (compared to Arena/MTGO) mainly due to distribution costs. Distribution is really the piece that needs to be optimized in WotC's perspective to keep costs down to improve that margin. As more and more product gets distributed by big retailers (e.g. Walmart) and big online distributors (e.g. Amazon, eBay), the need for an LGS to distribute the product is becoming less. WotC can directly deal with Walmart and Amazon without the need of regional distributors to then distribute to an LGS and make the final sale.
The following numbers are just to illustrate my point. Let's assume the cost to make one Standard booster box landed is 10USD. WotC then sells booster box somewhere between 40-60USD to a regional distributor, the distributor will sell it for around 72USD. The LGS can then make the final sale at whatever price, let's say 95USD for an average Standard box. All of these numbers would be a percentage of an MSRP or whatever number they want. If WotC can cut out the middleman (regional distributor or LGS) then they can sell the box for more thus improving the margin. So Wotc sells box for around 72USD to Walmart or Amazon, and they can sell it directly for 95USD. That is a significant jump in margin and shareholders would rejoice. Having their own online store to sell will improve margins as well even with all the other costs associated with website maintenance and packaging. All of the website rumors and the loss of the MSRP is pointing to a distribution overhaul at WotC.
Players need a place to play the paper Magic yes, but WotC gets money from mainly sealed product sales. As long as product sells, they don't care where you play the game (kitchen table, library, lunch table, street corner, etc). The role of an LGS may be changing from a needed avenue to sell to the consumer to now direct-to-consumer.
You realize if every LGS closed, Magic would just die right? Arena and MTGO wouldn't keep it's corpse afloat.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
End of the day, I really don't care what "other parts of the world" think about this, but this is going to end poorly with select stores jacking up prices well beyond reason and driving business to places like WalMart.
I would express the hope that it would NOT die, but would, instead, merely transition into a lesser-played version of itself.
Why is it always this all or nothing approach in gaming business? Either you're making billions or it's just not worth it to bother? What happened to being proud of modest successes and stability?
Is that really such a bad thing? If a store decides to be greedy and demand more money for a product that isn't worth the new price, the only group that's really going to be hurt by this is the store itself. If Walmart and Target can offer better prices for packs and decks, why wouldn't you want to shop there?
Walmart and Target don't offer anything other than sales. And there's a lot more to MTG (and other gaming hobbies) than just buying cards. That's why I buy my CCG/TTRPG/etc... at my local store, because they offer things like tournaments, a friendly environment, tables to play at for free, and so on.
While yes, a store that drastically marked things up would probably not meet the "friendly" definition of a FLGS, we do have a store in town that already radically marks things up, and it's still strongly in business.
The reverse is also a problem, big-dollar box stores can mark down product to a level where FLGS stores simply cannot compete.