Hard to do, many retailers went out of business or are just the same dropshippers you find on Amazon, just with the difference that Amazon actually has a sensible return policy.
Supporting local stores is something that shouldn't be left to individual consumers who are already tight on money to a degree it slows down the economy.
That's a job for the government to do, and there's loads of avenues the government can do if it deems local stores something important for the general population: controlling commercial rents, direct subsidies (colloquially implemented as "tax breaks"), introducing extra taxes on online retail to finance these, or limiting at-scale discounts for Amazon, Walmart and other nationwide chains so that small retail has a chance to compete again.
This is an interesting direction, realistically I don't expect the government to magically care about the lived experience of most people, because at the end of the day, it's also people running the government, and they are trying to meet their quotas/metrics/goals too, similarly to how the individual is trying to limit their expense for any particular purchase. I don't think I have an answer here, but I really am not satisfied with the possible result of your summary, which is for the average person to continue to explain away the cheapest/most convenient decision when they do have choice in the matter. I guess why not both?
> This is an interesting direction, realistically I don't expect the government to magically care about the lived experience of most people
Well, here in Europe, at least the EU government cares about the experience of the masses. That's how we got no roaming charges for phones, USB-C for everything, decent minimum standards for all possible sorts of products from cucumbers to cars, SEPA, (theoretically) open borders and a whole lot of other things...