[Myka]

I voted for everything except location because I don't care where it is, that's what shipping is for! I shop in many different places because no one vendor can give me everything I'm looking for. First, and foremost though I refuse to pay too much. I don't care how good the personal customer service is, I think good prices is part of customer service, so if the prices suck I find that to be ignorance of the vendor. So to me, price and customer service is the same thing. I like to chat with the employees/owner a bit, and am interested to have some more in depth conversations about different methods or results from experimentations, but when people say they don't mind paying a bit extra at a more expensive shop just because the customer service is good I just gawk at them, I don't get that. I won't pay for that, but maybe that's because I've been in the hobby since the early 90s, and (trying to say this in a humble way) I don't need much help.

For dry goods I buy wherever it's cheapest, period. For livestock, I go wherever has what I want. I will pay what I think it too much for a rare fish or an exceptional coral.