The logistics, inventory management, and customer service operations at the scale of Amazon are something that become possible with truly immense scale. They're crushingly expensive at small scale - call center, warehouses, pre-positioning goods, etc.

There are definitely ways to outsource any or all of these things, but at a cost in quality. I know I've often had unpleasant experiences with outsourced customer support call centers. Tools like Square or Shopify help, but only to a point.

So I think my conclusion might be different from yours - small, local businesses need a viable way to compete with Amazon in ways where Amazon doesn't have a vast advantage.