The days of the Hydro store are slipping past, To stay in the game a store has to offer more like a farm& garden store cant make a living selling just nutes an lights. The interweb changed all that I can get anything a Hydro store has 10-15% less dropped to my door in a couple days
Price depends on where you are, cheap Chinese stuff like tents and things sure as they don't charge you taxes as I believe there's a loop hole that a foreign company can sell on Amazon.ca and not have to charge you taxes if they just have a distribution house here but are located somewhere else.
Nutrients before legalization and before Prime free shipping were way cheaper on Amazon than they are atm. You can sell stuff at 10% over cost if the buyer pays the shipping.
You can't make money from small growers growing 4 plants, with the profit margins on hydro equipment locally, like BC coast where I can't sell a Gavita 1000DE for more than $385+tax ($35 profit). They buy once and come back evey few months vs 1 20 light grower comes back every week or so. Small growers were important when weed was $3K per LB as they made so much money from 1 light also that small grower was a 50/50 chance that in 3-5 crops would become a 10,20,100 light grower. In BC the small growers 1-4/6 lights disappeared for a while in the late 2000's because of hydro usage inspections starting around 2008 ish. That was the first true market collapse for hydro stores in BC. Lasted for about 6-8 months but back then rent on commercial properties was cheaper and most store owners had spare cash and weed still moved fast. Different story now.
You can make a hydro store work but 8 out of 10 would have to shut down.
