> The bad news is that physical stores simply do not carry any diversity nowadays, so their knowledge is irrelevant. Is that a "nowadays" thing though? At leas

> The bad news is that physical stores simply do not carry any diversity nowadays, so their knowledge is irrelevant. Is that a "nowadays" thing though? At least in my location, the reason a lot of us flocked to the online option was the diversity of options available. Physical stores (for understandable reasons) stocked only the few top-selling options, knew about a few other options enough to say "no we haven't got that", and anything else would get a blank stare and a "is that a company's name?" If you had put effort into your search and optimized the selection for your specific needs, you were much more likely to find the product online - the physical stores often forced you into a choice between different suboptimal products.