focalist:
I'm curious to hear if others have done similar store checks.. interesting mix of products, and interesting at sales rates, too.
I work up in Westford, Massachusetts and I check there from time to time. When I first started getting into Arduino, I think they had just a Uno and the Mega, and now the Westford store has pretty much the same stock, plus some accessories from Seeed, such as a protoshield. However, at the time, I was looking for one off force sensors and voltage converters, that they didn't have. It may be my memory, but I thought the prices were more reasonable as well.
Since the shack is the only distributor for the Esplora, it will be interesting to see if they carry it in the retail store. Well interesting in the theoretical sense, as the Esplora really doesn't interest me.