Not quite the same comparison. BN's (and Best Buy's, and other retailers') problem is Amazon; Amazon is a problem because those types of physical goods don't h

Not quite the same comparison. BN's (and Best Buy's, and other retailers') problem is Amazon; Amazon is a problem because those types of physical goods don't have an expiration date and they're the same regardless of which shop you buy them at, so if it's cheaper and more convenient to buy online, brick and mortar stores have zero advantage. They end up as showrooms. Even if you add "serendipitous discovery" into the mix, people will just write the name of the book down and buy it cheaper at Amazon when they get home. A small, curated, general-purpose bookstore with a knowledgeable clerk will still be just a showroom if people can buy it cheaper on Amazon. Baked goods (and other sorts of things like that) on the other hand vary from store to store, have a built-in expiration date, and lend themselves poorly to shipping by mail. Maybe a super-niche showroom or specialized bookstore (like antiques or first editions) might be able to turn a hair of a profit, but I suspect not enough to make it more than a labor of love for a retiree owner or some other kind of person not concerned with profit.