It’s just SO MUCH EASIER to sell unique, surplus, curio, etc stuff online these days than to pack it up every weekend and hit show after show. Low margin stuff costs a ton to pack and repack and repack and move and move and move, just to eventually run into the right guy which needs it on the right day that he’s at the right show - but the internet reaches the entire country every day, all day…
We’ve also seen a drying of old pipelines which always easily paid back the show fees and travel. The few shops I worked for over the years which would occasionally show all used the same trick: order a few crates of Yugo SKS’s, swede and Argentine Mausers, grab a couple AK’s, a few crates of surplus ammo - buy them for nothing, mark them at “nothing plus a little,” and they’d fly off of the table at shows. Great returns on easy sales, and it paid for the burden of showing, so the rest of the sales we made were gravy. Can’t buy crates of import yugo’s for $30-45 each any more, so you can’t have a pez dispenser of $75-90 yugo’s sitting on your table… and by the way… gas is $3/gal instead of $1.25…