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Lots of great replies here!
The idea of buying and returning was mentioned by a few, and it can be a good way to evaluate a product... provided you do enough research to buy from a store that allows hassle-free returns of opened products (and many will only replace the product with the same item, so I mean it--research!).
I think a lot of people are a bit leery of product returns for this reason, not to mention the hassle of having to return to the store and deal with their counter help (rarely a pleasant process). And I think there's a psychological effect at work there, too: Some stores almost actively discourage you from trying to return anything. Amazon, I think, makes it easier than most, and some other retailers are learning. Hopefully more customers will be at-ease with the idea of buy, test and return... especially if stores won't provide decent help and opportunities to test devices.
But not being able to try and buy means a lot of (okay some) impulse buying won't happen. Admittedly, reader purchases are still low, but are retailers shooting themselves in the foot by not making a stronger effort to sell reading devices? Or are their margins so low as to make the effort impractical for them?
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