[jrockway]

I don't think there is a small mom & pop one stop shop, but if you are willing to buy different things from different stores, you have options. I buy most of my electronics from B&H, and things like fasteners from McMaster-Carr.

Amazon does feel pretty unavoidable for the long tail, though.

[lisper]

I'm surprised that these specialty retailers have not banded together to form some kind of syndicate with a common web front end to take orders. That sort of thing could be an Amazon-killer. Combined with a doordash-like delivery service it could offer same-day delivery and reliable product vetting.

Hm, anyone here want to start a company?

[jrockway]

Isn't that kind of what Shopify, Fast, and some other company that I only heard off because they laid off half their staff doing?

I haven't researched the industry extensively, but I'm guessing that companies like to keep customer data to themselves and curate what they think is the ideal checkout experience. (Everyone should copy McMaster, though.) That's why you see companies happy to delegate the financing involved in buying their products to credit card companies, but still make their own website/checkout/fulfillment rather than letting, say, Amazon do that for them. (Shopify does seem to have quite a lot of traction, however.)

[lisper]

None of those companies are syndicates, i.e. none of them are owned by the retailers they represent. They're trying to just be middlemen. That won't work.

[Vladimof]

McMaster-Carr is amazing but Grainger is very nice too.