Local fish stores need to cater to the most common denominator fish buyers, to stay "above water" because of the meager profit margins.
If they get in a bunch of fish that very few people will buy, those species tie up tanks that could make a profit with fish that seldom, or maybe never sell. This is not good for the bottom line..
Today this means stores must stock tanks with gold fish, glo fish, long fin bettas, FHs, Blood parrots, fancy guppies and other such bread and butter fish, and maybe one arowana, or oddball that (although may sit a few months) will reap a pretty good profit in the end.
And I believe LFSs realize, specialty fish will be ordered by specialty buyers on line anyway.
Even before I left the U.S., I hadn't bought a fish from a LFS in years, for many reasons.
They never had the species I wanted, and even if they had something interesting, I couldn't trust the fish to not be a hybrid.
In many LFSs IDs were so erroneous, it was almost laughable.
It is the same here in Panama, the LFSs have fancy line bred live bearers, fancy gold fish, and glo-fish, Bettas, and a few common African cichlids, that's about it.
I asked if they could get any native Panamanian cichlid species, and they looked at me like I was crazy. They said no one would buy them here even if the store had them, and it is against the law to sell them without a special (and expensive) permit, so not worth the trouble, tank space or expense.
More than one LFS owner said if local fish is what I wanted, I'd either have to collect them myself, or get a local fisherman's by-catch.
Which is what I have ended up doing.