It's awfully low tech, but the local indie book shop here in Vancouver will order any book you ask for and deliver it throughout Metro Vancouver. All you need to do is call them and ask.
Many families have quit because they lost their jobs. All of us have converted online one way or another...and trying to survive based on who has been retained. But this was like a kick in the nuts.
We all know how frustrating and time-wasting it can be, when calling for professional service...
In the end, it's still a tech problem.
Amazon has the tech, and the customer base to form a virtuous cycle.
The smaller shop dont have that.
We need more Shopify like supplier, with varying degrees of sophistication and targeted customer groups.
Calling is a waste of time when you're dialing a megacorp like your phone company or utilities provider, because they treat customer service as a cost center and do everything possible to prevent you from talking to a human who isn't reading off a script.
Smaller shops will usually have someone who just picks up the phone when you call.
I expect the successful ones will have decent ecommerce platform within the new few years.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22773393
And Bookshop is just the newest one, as others like Alibris have been around for much longer.
1) Go to Amazon (or Monoprice, or whatever - it's online vs local that I'm talking about here), search for "right-angle adapter from HDMI male to HDMI mini male", and look through the result photos until you find something that looks correct, most likely somewhere on the first page. If it were a more expensive item, maybe you'd spend an extra minute checking the ratings, reviews, and questions. Either way, you find exactly what you need by searching for an exact descriptive phrase.
2) Call some local shop, and have this conversation:
A) "Hi, I'm looking for an HDMI cable, but it needs to be a certain shape and size, do you have a selection of those?"
B) "Sure, I think so, what do you need exactly?"
A) "Well, it's HDMI male on one side, HDMI mini male on the other side, and the mini side needs to have a right angle connector. I need it to be at least a foot long, ideally not much longer than that."
B) "Ok, let me go check on that..."
A) [wait a little bit]
B) "I have a few options here, was that a right angle on the mini side or the full-size side?"
A) "Mini side"
B) "Ok I don't think we have exactly that, but..."
Then, repeat as many times as you can stand with other stores.
This isn't some theoretical example. Something like this happened to me a few years ago, and I made a conscious decision to use online merchants more often because it's an easy trade to make to regain a bit of time in your life.
Give me a website I can browse with all the information (and the rest of the internet) at my fingertips any day of the week. (To a lesser extent I find in-person shopping a frustrating exercise too.)
Also their staff are way more helpful than any person at a big box hardware store.
Otherwise while I get wanting to support local stores, have a bookstore order a book for you to have them deliver it feels way too wasteful when you could order the book from systems directly hooked with the publisher that will send it straight to you, delivered by professional drivers.
I bought a pfSense-style router recently, and a Pi 4B, both from small shops (one Swedish[1], one French[2]). They shipped within 24h. These people are hard at work, and they deserve all the credit they can get.
In particular, the Swedish one had a very nice knowledge base on their products (they select / assemble parts themselves, cost is as low as it gets, I value the work they do since it's saving me time and hassle).
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[2]: https://www.kubii.fr/ (sadly, language is Fr-Es-It only, but I guess we've got Google Trad for that)
Various local retail I've been trying to buy from: * Cat supplies delivered from Happy Cat. * Stationary and cards from Regional Assembly of Text * Beer from 33 Acres.