[BruceWayne]

Some very interesting observations made here. Personally, I think it is difficult to refute the fact that the retail store model has needed to change with the advent of the internet. I attended the Industry Summit in Vegas this past March and I was extremely impressed with how hard-working and innovative some of the shop owners were who were in attendance. Granted, those dealers may not be a representative sample of all the shop owners in the industry but I was pretty impressed with the things they were doing to cater to the needs of their customers.

Notably, it was quite obvious to seeing the growing trend for card shops to focus on unopened wax for customers hoping to pull big insert cards. This is clearly a byproduct of the card manufacturing marketing strategy. While I understand that may make little sense to a vintage card collector, I think we need to accept this as a reality for store owners in today's environment. In addition, I noticed the new trend of "Case Breaks" is becoming more popular and that is also a product of the proliferation of information technology.

I also see a trend toward contests which include the gaming segment. Again, this stems from the reality that the younger generation is much more interactive than previous generations (a byproduct of the world in which they are reared) and these contests allow customers to come to the shops and spent time together. To my understanding, many of these contests are done with non-sport product.

Just a few observations I noticed from my attendance at the Summit. Again, I cannot stress enough how impressed I was with how hard-working and dedicated some of the shop owners are and how they work to reach the grass roots of the hobby.