[Arithonne]

This means readers have the opportunity to buy the books you’re self-publishing instantly. Book retailers and publishers are pointing customers directly at you, customers who have money burning a hole in their pockets

Umm, they'll point them to their store where they'll have the books that you contracted with them to publish. No one's going to be pointing anyone at anything unless they get a cut of the pie along the way.

I know for a fact that Michael Stackpole offers his self-pubbed ebooks for sale through Kobo and Amazon as well as through his website. It wouldn't surprise me to learn they're also for sale through B&N and at other places as well. So if a store employee points a customer to the store website to purchase ebooks, they're going to see both the trad-pubbed and the self-pubbed. So yeah, brick and mortar store employees are going to be pointing customers to self-published books too.