[mdp]

(I got slowed down, but I wanted to write the following much earlier.)

I can propose that something which is missing is a sort of an IKEA model. (I do not intend to promote the brand - I need to highlight the clever completeness, freedom and benefits of a system it uses.)

IKEA covers a complete range of exploration facilities. It offers catalogues; you can explore items it sells online and you may order them online and have them shipped.

At the same time, they have warehouses you can visit, and check the items directly: touch, see, browse, check, compare, look around, take your time, possibly buy. And those warehouses are pretty complete, maybe showing 99-ish percent of the catalogue. And organized twice (stretching the metaphor a bit) - thematically (living, kitchen etc.) on some floors and by storage order (series_AAA-code001 etc.) on some other floors; so: "by topic" here and "by series" there, by room display here and by shelf there, open here and compact there.

And it would not matter if you then bought online afterwards: to check the items is part of their promotion.

Some intelligent variation of the same model* may be missed about books. There are reasons to have their catalogue available online, to have them purchasable electronically, to have them in an electronic format, and there are reasons to have places where to find their complete (or almost complete) offer reflected physically. And in fact, some businesses work similarly.

*(Of course, the parallel of the two worlds of furniture and books is not strict and dumb, 1:1. For example, IKEA diffuses music in the warehouses, which is a focus-limiting Gruen transfer trick. That would be criminal or abysmally ignorant in a bookstore - where focus is highly relevant. And of course the furniture has to be finally physical - but this is not relevant to the promotional model and the freedom and possibilities offered to the customer; books just happen to be available in more forms.)