Bought a bat from him, cracked toe in the knocking in process - and he didn't want to know about it. That said - the bat was/is awesome (I had it fixed). Mate bought one from him and the handle went after its first couple of games. Again - he didn't want to know about it, so he had it fixed locally.
So you just need to offset the risk of something going wrong and having no recourse to fix with price. From a bricks and mortar local place nine times out of ten they'll help you out. With a place like onlinestockist, nine times out of ten they won't help you out if there is an issue.