My thoughts match Rocky's fairly closely - whenever I can, I choose to buy in person, from a physical location. Back 6 years ago, I bought everything online. In between, I worked at a physical retail store, became a manager, and became steeped in the philosophies of locally owned businesses. Yes, you pay more when you buy locally, but you generally are dealing with people who not only know their products, but are passionate about their industry (or hobby, depending on who you talk to).

The same thing applies to kiltmaking: If you're making enough to even just scrape by, loving what you do makes scraping by a lot easier. If you make enough to be a little more comfortable, then you're doing something right business-wise, too! If your product is high enough quality that people are willing to spend a good chunk of change on it, then by all means you deserve that money.

As a consumer, if you're not willing to spend $X on a product, then you have to realize that you're restricting the quality of product that you're going to get. (Alternatively also, you're paying more for a product of the same quality that's made in your country, if your philosophies run that way)