Before, if you wanted to have a web store, you basically had to have a kid build you a website, updating was slow, every transaction processing system was different, (or they just took it in a web form and processed your card by hand on the visa machine in the office), the website didn't process inventory so someone had to keep that up-to-date. Then, they'd take your address and box to the post office and get a label. Hopefully, you didn't fat finger it, there was no data sanitation on the form and the post office isn't checking. And, if you didn't get the right product, they were out of stock, it was damaged . . . w/e, the return process was an email, goofy web form, or phone call to get a person on the phone to manually handle whatever went wrong, and that's if they weren't just a scammer and were actually going to ship you your stuff.

Now, any business that wants to have an online store front can grab a template, upload some pictures of their inventory, and the site handles payment processing, buys and prints a label, schedules a shipping pickup, handles the return process including generating return shipping labels. Often, the processor has a quick payment resolution system.

Amazon was really good at some point because they had enough people to build those things and make the experience pretty good, like, you just knew that you wouldn't get ripped off, you could send it back, hell, order two and pick the one you like and send one back. Youu didn't even have to enter your card number into some dodgy site or stop to type your shipping address and risk sending it next door with no recourse because amazon already has that seup.

But now, a lot of that barrier to entry is gone as companies have made the various parts of the stack available for a small percentage of each transaction. You can go to a website that works, order something, pay with paypal or stripe which have some customer protections, just select the shipping address on file with the processor and get an email with a tracking number a minute later. If you don't like it, you can send it back and the site will probably even integrate with usps/ups/shipper of choice help you to create a label and arrange a next day pickup.

And when you buy directly from the company, you can assume they are validating their product and it's not a fake, you know there's been no inventory mixing. You know what you are going to get.

And, to top it off, with a password safe, you can track accounts at 500 places so it's not really that much of a hassle to have multiple accounts, and that's only if you have to make an account because the payment processor of choice (of which they probably have several), even requires you to make an account on their site.

My point being, that other than amazon being a single point of shopping, they really don't offer anything that a small business can't for a relatively small effort.

I miss wandering the isles of Costco though.