"D. J. Dorn" wrote in message

Apparantly Lee Valley is out and won't get any more until late January.
He was told to find a retail outlet that might have them. He found a
store in Toronto has three but since they are not a distributor, they
would not sell / ship him one. They told him to call customer service who
could possibly arrange for it. When calling customer service, he was told
three was not enough stock for them to have one transfered so that it
could be sold to him. He offered an immediate sale in advance but was
refused.

His question has to do with what is considered reasonable.

Please clarify, was this a Lee Valley store? Or an independent?

My guess is the store has no simple way of taking a CC on the phone (some
pay large fees if they do). They may not have regular UPS or mail service
so it would be added cost to got to a depot to ship. In any case, in the
middle of a buys season it will not be profitable, will detract from serving
the walk in trade, probably have some other implications. Sending it back to
LV incurs even more cost. Sorry, but I think you are asking a little too
much.