We have new music shop where I live but I dont' go in often as it is mostly guitars and the few basses they have are fenders. I don't know how shops survive.
If I wanted to get a new bass or look at them I used to go to the PMT shop in bristol but now they don't put the prices on them so I can't tell whats what, so I have lost interest in looking on them - in fact, I was there last weekend, looked around the basses, a few had prices, just the discounts, so I looked, lost interested and went and played on the keyboards.
I am in a way surprised that there isn't a good music shop somewhere where they have some instruments set up and also a coffee shop or something where musicians can hang out, it would make it more of a social thing (and the coffee might pay for the shop to run better than the guitars). They could put informal gigs on, or mic nights etc. Trouble is you need some space but I can't see a way that a purely music shop could survive