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...I live in a major metro area in California. The only bicycle stores remaining here that carry stuff besides bikes maintain pretty low inventories of everything on the shelves that is not bicycles, and they haven't really stocked a huge selection of small parts for the past 20 years or so. Trek owns one, Mikes Bikes owns another, the bike store up in Tahoe started up one recently here (because they got the Specialized distributorship).
For someone like me, who mostly just fixes, overhauls, and maintains and needs a source in bulk for cables, brake pads, housing in bulk rolls, misc small parts I can't buy over at the local bolts and screws place, Amazon and ebay are the only game left. I can't start an account at Merry sales, because I'm not a bike shop. From conversing with the mechanics at Mike's Bikes, they are constantly ordering small parts stuff anyway, because very little is kept in inventory.
I live less than half a mile from an Amazon warehouse distribution center. That sort of makes them my local store, I guess. Except they deliver. Do not remember getting any empty envelopes, but I can see where that might happen, given the speeds at which the employees are compelled to fill orders. My wife bought Prime, because she has an addiction to exotic skin care products. I sometimes use it for the free shipping, but I just as often get free shipping by waiting longer for delivery. Which doesn't seem to take all that much longer. Mostly, I worry about some poor warehouse employee getting crushed in the local warehouse by one of their robot transports, just to get me my gadget two days sooner.