I work for Isoldit, and am fairly close to the corporate infrastructure, after reading the article posted last year(http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/...le.php/3631266)

I feel obligated to extrapolate on some things...

Most of these stores (at least Isoldit stores) dont make any thing close to a profit. The current closure rate is 38% of their stores.

The reasons are many, a good deal of it is that most items brought in dont bring that high a value, shipping costs stack up, high overhead bills, and most importantly, almost complete lack of support by Corporate.

Recently many of the international stores (Ireland/England I believe) all went into recievership, here in the states franchisee's are closing left and right, many of them losing their life savings.

Dave Crocker's decisions about dept. cuts have been catastrophic, most of the corporate bldg. looks like a ghost town at this point. The wheels are turning at Isold it but nobody's home.