samer wroteAn online store has barely any expenses so it should be cheaper than the phone stores, not more expensive.
This is a misconception. An online store has to invest much more in marketing and customer acquisition, given its virtual nature. You don't magically end up in an online store, you have to be lead there. Side road phone stores as you call them, do have a decent amount of serendipitous customers.
There has to be an investment, but it's minuscule compared to the costs of a physical store. If what you say is true and that an online store has to invest "much more" which would justify its higher prices, then it would be a bad business as a large number of people like to physically see/try the product before they buy it. Also, real world examples shows that prices from online stores are always less than physical stores.
Now, I don't want to hurt the guy's business prospects, but he should rethink his business plan and I'd definitely be one of his customers. (Started buying from pcandparts approximately 13 years ago due to their pricing etc...)
I'm guessing 3gleb is buying retail and "then" adding his profit instead of going to the source directly (but I might be wrong in this guess and it could turn out he is just adding a large profit). When a sideroad phone shop can get me an ipad3 black 32GB wifi for 590$, he is definitely making at least 10-20$ profit from the transaction otherwise he wouldn't bother, so he must be getting it for 570-580$? maybe even less.
His strong points: the distrust many people have with sideroad phone shops, the mystery of whether the items from 3gleb come with a valid warranty or not (to see if we compare his prices to virgin or to sideroad phone shops) but can be sorted out with a question in an email. Other than those 2, there is no gain I can see whatsoever. Convenience? This is a very small country, there are phone/computer shops every few hundred meters, so convenience isn't valid much.