It's possible places like Wal-Mart and Target still sell them for $1.99. Hobby shops tend to charge slightly more for packs because they don't buy them in the large quantities that the distributors for WM and Target do.
And, in some cases, the hobby packs have better odds at chase cards and things like that (that's not to say ANS9 sold at hobby stores is guaranteed to have anything like that, though).