"Last major retailer in the UK withdrawing from our hobby?" Topic

Retail ordering practices confuse the hell out of me. I recently was lucky enough to get a book published in South Africa, and was delighted to see it in various branches of the biggest chain of book shops down here (Exclusive Books). Each store seemed to have three or four copies in it, but when these quickly sold out, they didn't re-order and so my total sales were dismally e.
The store manager's rationale seemed to be: 'well, it only sold three or four copies, so it's not worth re-ordering'. Whereas my take on it is that he should think: 'well, those sold out quickly, so let's order another three or four'.

I guess they know more about running a successful chain of book shops that I do, but it still baffles me.

There is nothing like looking around a hobby shop and buying stuff. Nice to look at thingts in the flesh. However, it makes very little financial sense to run a shop selling stuff that other people make. Very difficult to supply such a niche market that is subdivided into so many smaller niches. The internet was bound to take over. Shops can never stock the vast range or quantity of products it needs to keep us all happy. The internet can. If I want a dozen packs of something I can order it directly from teh supplier of main distributor at the same price or cheaper than a shop, and they have the stock or will make it unlike the shop that only carries three packs.
However, it's not all doom and gloom as you can still have a look at items at shows. Yes, I also miss the local hobby shop, but there are still a few left. These all seem to be busy dealing with internet sales, which probably keep the place open for us browsers!

BullDog69, that's exactly what I was trying to explain to a friend of mine last night. Thanks for putting it better than I did.