Every business has a responsibility to provide the products and services to fulfill the wants, needs and desires of their intended market sector.  Those that don't usually don't survive.

I've watched small businesses try to live on the "shop locally" mantra without supporting themselves by understanding their customers' needs.  They might was well be spitting into the wind.  If you can't supply the customer with what they want to buy, the answer is still the same - no sales.  No amount of "shop locally" cajoling will do the trick.  The consumer drives the marketplace.

My background is primarily in print media, which I converted over to consulting, as I observed a need.  Up until the late 1970s, newspapers practically had a license to print money, in terms of control of the market, but they slipped up.  They forgot how THEIR consumer drove the marketplace, i.e. no readers, no advertiser response.  Life got faster, consumers became more focused on the convenience of electronic media and direct mail became the print alternative, as it took the message directly to ALL the consumers in a geographical market, not just those that were willing to pay to read the newspaper.  In the early 1980s, our printing division was setting record sales numbers, while our advertising department was singing the blues.

I remember weekday editions of our small daily running 36 to 44 pages at peak (midweek grocery day).  Try to find an ROP grocery ad in newspapers today (run of paper, not insert).  Newspapers have taken it on the lips for the same reason that some retailers fail - not serving the wants, needs and desires of the community.

I did some work in a small town in Oregon in the late 1980s, consulting a mother and daughter team (dad and mom divorced) that had no marketing background, but inherited the newspaper via divorce.  I hired a survey company out of Portland to determine readership desires and demographics to provide this company some selling tools.  The response to the survey was excellent, in terms of pure numbers.

While reading over the consumer interests as to what they'd like to see in the editorial side of the product, the Editor looked at me and said "these people don't know what they are talking about!"

I think that says it all.

 "There is only one race, the human race" - The Neville Brothers

I think it is best to be patient. I'd be surprised and disappointed if they did not ultimately come through for you. As someone who works in and sometimes deals with retails sales online and a downtown storefront, I can tell you it takes a week at the least for special order items. That is if they don't hold your order while trying to gather enough other additional needs to purchase from the vendor to save on high shipping expenses. Remember the gas prices? Most good arrive to their destination on lots of gas.

It is nice to support our local businesses, if you don't you may not have a record or bike shop to just walk into. On a larger scale loss of business downtown could mean no local restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, barber shops, comic book stores, grocery stores, breweries, etc.

I'd personally hate to be stuck buying goods from large chains in a corporate world. We have a nice mix of shops and stuff downtown and I think it is only getting better.