Just my opinion, but I feel the best way for "today's" small homebrew shop to stay in business is to also run a brew pub similar to The Homebrewer shop in – San Diego, CA
Your ingredients would rarely go bad, if the yeast is about to expire brew with it, hops getting old brew with it, grain going stale brew with it.
That being said, someone in Northern Alabama, please steal this idea and open up a homebrew shop/pub