I don't think it's necessary to use cost of doing business as the justification for higher or lower prices but for discussion's sake only;
There are a bunch of reasons why their prices might be on the lower end.
1. We already speculated that their proximity to Briess makes shipping cheaper on the supply side and the possible handshake deal to bypass 3rd party distributor markup. On Briess products, this is a no brainer and I'm further convinced of this possibility due to the relative markup between Briess grains and European (imported) grains.
2. They are also pretty close to Rahr/BSG
3. Low overhead. Industrial area/warehouse leases in that area cost about half what I'm paying in rent. I chose a mixed shipping/walk in retail environment so it had to be somewhat accessible to major roads.
4. Labor costs and cost of living (e.g. how much the business owner needs to pay themselves in order to live in that location).
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This one is kind of interesting because one might argue that no one is forced to operate in an expensive geographical area. On the other hand, I'm a person that lives in the state where I was born and I'm not that motivated to find the absolute cheapest place to live so I can out compete other shipping based vendors. I know that option is available to me but you can't make me do that.
The labor cost side of it may also be controversial. NJ also attracts a lot of high value jobs in Pharma and tech so it may skewed, but even wages on the lower end are vastly different. NJ minimum wage is over $13 while WI is $7.