Yes, but I think Amazon differed on 2 key points.

1. You had to go through their order process, talking to someone, completing the ordering process, and then coming back to pick it up. If you live 45 minutes from the book store, that gets to be a pain.

2 You have to know the book existed. I don't think I ever really ordered a book, because for the most part, I didn't know what alternatives existed to what they offered. Amazon helped fix that. Instead of finding say one book on Python, there were a dozen on Amazon's site.