[shalmanese]

I imagine the cost of developing and maintaining an online review system is relatively trivial in the overall scope of running an online business. Your example is just online vs B&M competing on their own merits. OTOH, it costs real money to hire knowledgable salespeople and real estate for attractive displays.

I don't know if this is a causal relationship but I noticed companies drastically cutting back on the quality of salespeople around the time online shopping became big. This would make sense economically as stores could no longer capture the full economic value of good service. OTOH, for vertically integrated stores like Apple, the incentives are aligned and the quality of staff is noticeably higher.