Exactly this. I want to support small local businesses and I’m happy to pay a slight premium for that (as well as being able to look at/touch the physical object that I can then immediately take home with me), but I really can’t be bothered to spend an hour or two trying to track it down. I wish brick-and-mortar shops would get together and build a platform where I can search their inventories and find the places close to me that carry the item that I already know I want. Bonus points if I can compare prices too, but I can see why they might not want that.
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It's almost like it was a gimmick that they didn't really care about...
I suspect the internet has made this worse. People used to go visit several stores to find less common items, so they sold eventually. Now they give up and go online.
As a NYC resident, it's not really a matter of urgency. Identical products are generally much cheaper online (and generally with free shipping). And it's much more convenient since the products get shipped straight to my apartment which removes the need for me to navigate poorly stocked/organized stores and then carry it back to my apartment by walking, taking the subway, or the bus.
A lot of the time, it's actually difficult to find certain goods in stores here (or to know which store to go to). Recently I've purchased: calipers, a high torque servo motor, and playing cards online. I honestly don't know where I could find calipers and motors in stores here. I've tried buying playing cards in stores, but I could not find a reasonably sized package in stores that are also in stock. I've found 6 packs of playing cards in stores, but the regular 1 or 2-packs are always out of stock. I seriously tried for two months to buy the cards in store before giving up and buying it on Amazon.