My local is more of a surf shop with a skate corner, owned/ran by surfers. They're nice and all but it's a coin-toss on whether someone who actually skates will be the person gripping your board or giving recommendations. I'd say... 90% of the time, a highschool girl who has never stepped foot on a skateboard is the one grabbing hard goods and trying to give recommendations.
Two years ago, after being fed up with trying to explain what I'm trying to get, I just started ordering/paying over the phone and picking it up in person. I'm OK with this but really miss having that local skate shop experience.
Story time. The moral: ALWAYS BUY LOCAL AND NEVER RIDE A WARPED BOARD:
Over a decade ago, I was broke and needed a board. Someone at my park mentioned Pac Sun had cheap boards. I drive over there, see a Kenny Anderson on the wall and go for it. 7.75, $30, on clearance because "they're sending more and we're getting rid of last season". Even when this sounded weird to me, I thought, "Makes sense, cheap board, cool". They grip it, I go to skate.
What I failed to notice is how warped this board was, width wise, from tail to nose. The first thing I tried to do with it was ollie onto a ledge and the fucking thing almost did a full-rotation kickflip. Landed primo and almost broke my arm. I thought, "Oh, you're just having an off day and the board is too grippy".
Although I generally sucked at transitions, the way Tom Penny skated had a huge impact on me so I learned early-on how to nollie half-cab on tranny. This being a go-to trick for me, I attempt one on a 5' quarterpipe. As soon as I popped, my board began to nollie-heel and I panicked. I quickly stopped sliding my foot and, stupidly, just tried to get the board back under my feet. In doing this, my front foot stayed on the board but my back foot went behind it. I landed like this, did the splits and all of my weight made my knee pop sideways, which tore my ACL.
That injury has plagued me for life. Had I just saved for a couple of days and bought a new board from my local, that could have changed the course of history for me.