I can't speak from experience -- I've never owned or operated a quilt shop. Speaking as a quilter, and as the mother of a son who works in retail, I can tell you that operating any kind of retail establishment is extremely hard. The public frequenting retail establishments are too often (because once is too often) ill mannered, inconsiderate and not at all pleasant to be around. The community in which I live is a very rural area, and therein presents a problem because the market volume is just not present. My son works in a very good, nationally known office/computer service/sales, etc. Obviously, that's a very different area of the business world. Retail is very hard -- when I was in high school, I worked in a ladies' wear store in Wichita, Kansas. A locally-owned very nice store -- not necessarily a high-dollar establishment, but a very nice store. I helped a customer who was looking for the same dress in her size that was stocked by the J. C. Penney Store a block away. We had the dress in her size, the other store did not. This woman walked a block in a large metropolitan area because our price was five cents more than Penney's. Again, a LQS is a very different type of establishment, but the fact remains, retail business is extremely hard, and it takes a very strong person to keep a retail business afloat.