>Well...I'm not so sure that comparing prices is 'piggybacking'. I think it's a sly move on the part of Amazon, but hey capitalism means companies compete with each other. If Amazon found a way to save people a few bucks..well then good for them (and their customers). I wouldn't be surprised if people wander around a book store, get recommendations or attend author events, then boogie out the door and buy the stuff online.

The main reason I'm shopping online is the limited choice in the brick and mortar cinder block and steel beams boxes. What I expect from retail is to have what I want, which they generally do in terms of groceries, handyman's tools and parts, and clothing. For anything beyond that, the long tail of the web commerce comes to the rescue.

At some point I stopped getting my books from Amazon and started raiding the local little bookstore. But I was not a sufficient market force, the store closed soon. Then I switched to Barns and Borders, and ran out of books to buy within a few months. They simply don't have books I want, they have the books they think will sell. Doesn't sell fast enough, it goes off the shelves. And then, it's only the authors who signed with their suppliers. Looking for a book from somebody else? Sorry, no, but we have these... Also, there's so much crap - de gustibus non est disputandum - that I just got fed up and went online again.

Online retail, combined with a good delivery system (and combination of USPS, UPS, Fedex et al works just fine) solves that. The problem of which merchandise to display in which shops is solved - display them all on your website, and keep them in one place, or wherever you want, but you don't incur the cost of delivery before it's sold. Or... no cost at all, customer pays it.

I've seen a combination of this and brick and mortar shops (although they've started building box shops here too, still few and far between) working perfectly here. "We don't have it at the moment, but we can order it - you'll have it...", they say just like they say in the US, and when I expected a week or two - it's "...tomorrow". And it IS there tomorrow. Probably because the distances are shorter.

>When I was a kid I used to like getting our Milk delivered to our house too - but hey times have changed and we have to roll with the changes..

Who is Milk?