I find even the larger businesses have much poorer shopping experiences than Amazon. I wanted to buy a book last year. I found it on a major, non-amazon bookseller's website. However, no "Look-inside", not even a description, no reviews, no real information about it aside from the title and [very short] description. I ended up going to Amazon to find all this info and having a look at the "Look inside" first few pages, and then buying it from the other retailer. It worked, but not exactly great, people going to a competitor's website to research the product.

It sucks, because I want to support businesses other than Amazon and the like, ones that pay corporation tax and don't abuse their market position, but the other stores really have to raise their game. For better or worse, Amazon has definitely been a game-changer in retail and it's not enough to trade like it's the year 2000 any more. You have to be innovative and see software as a way to improve your offering.