I walked into a Worst Buy abut two years ago and had a list of like 6 things I needed. I couldn’t find ANY of them. I had to look for a manager who gleefully told me “It’s online only, but we can ship it to you!”
I asked hm why he was so proud of that and he started extolling the virtues of their vast online selection and they could ship it to me in between three and 10 days. I told him that these were things I needed tomorrow. He continued on about how vast their online selection is and how they could ship anything to me...for a delivery charge, of course.
I stopped him and said, “Are you listening to yourself? When a customer shows up and nothing he needs is in the store and you crow about shopping at home online (they won’t order it for you in the store), how much longer do you think they’ll keep coming back?”
“Well, sir, that’s why we have such a huge online selection.”
“And how much longer do yo suppose they’ll be needing retail store managers?”
I thanked him for his time and left him to think about how quickly he’s putting himself out of a job.
The manager probably thought about what you said and understood it much, much later that day. May have realized just how idiotic and detached he was sounding. He would never admit it to you though. This is what many of today’s managers are told to do, extol the ‘amazing’ skills and virtues of the new system. The tail wags the new dog.
This is why Amazon should buy Best Buy. They can legitimately BE Amazon’s showroom - where you can take it with you today, if you want. Best Buy cannot last as a competitor.