So I guess my anecdote cancels yours out?
Even when you do go to a shop you are often redirected online. That item isn't in stock on the computer. No attempt to upsell you or suggest an alternative which they might have in stock. It's no wonder high street stores are dying out.
To be fair, small specialist stores are usually much better. I even got a call back from a company the last time I was trying to buy a specific BBQ. Sadly they didn't have it in stock and a day or two later I found it online.
It may even be influenced by who is working that week or that month or who runs the place this year.
Ecommerce is imperfect in many ways, but it is far more consistent in its imperfection than local retail.
W.C. Winks Hardware Inc. in Portland, Oregon has been around since 1909 and is amazing.
You can go in there with some odd piece of hardware and someone will personally wait on you, assess your request and find the exact item or closest likeness.
The staff is patient and friendly, in my experience it is ideal local retail. But Winks doesn’t do ecommerce at all, so I often must relegate it to unusual hard to figure HW needs, because not every project needs this level of service.
I’m in agreement that retail has some pretty serious work to do to stay in the running. It might not be fair or “right” but it has to happen nonetheless.
There are no good options. I went through this recently where I had to call different stores on 3 separate days, waiting till 10am, 11am, or 12pm. And you still don't know the product you are asking about is really the one you are after. There are so many versions of products and specific use cases nowadays.
Do you... try that regularly?
Stores are so understaffed, you're lucky to get them to pick up the phone at all, and if they do you often won't get accurate information. They'll never walk to an aisle to see if something is physically there, they'll tell you if it's "in the system", but frequently "the system" will show 3 in stock while the reality is zero on the shelf. Or 48 in stock but they're all on a pallet in the back they can't get to.
And good luck finding a sales associate in the store itself. Quite frequently there simply aren't any -- only cashiers, a security guard, and people restocking who don't have the knowledge to help you at all.