It's not quite that simple, but yeah, there isn't that much work involved with order taking/tracking. I worked at MEC (the Canadian version of REI), and every store had a proper shipping department. Things ordered off the website would be pulled and shipped from the closest store to the purchaser, packaged and shipped out. So even though we were dealing with actual physical inventory, the administrative side would take about 5-6 minutes for each order, logging it into the system, crossing the T's and dotting the I's. They'll have their own records of orders as well as tracking, etc, that they have to essentially duplicate when they order from the distributor. Or maybe not, as evidenced by the runaround these guys give people when things get lost.