There is still something nice about a heimishe store where you can trust them and get all of the products you want. For example, in a lot of smaller communities, the heimish store is the only place to buy chalov yisroel/pas yisroel products.
In E”Y, I find the makolets to be just as reasonable for certain items as the big stores- Yeish.
Either way, most ppl find that heimish stores are significantly over priced which makes it harder for ppl to support them.
It is up to each community if it is worth it for them to support it enough for it to stay in business. If not, I do not think it is right when 1/2 the community gets together and tries to make the chain stores the “bad guys” for taking the smaller stores out of business and tries everyone not to shop there “for their own good.”
A storeowner can charge what he wants… but then he can’t blame ppl for not giving him business.