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There's nothing wrong with a physical place for people to congregate and share their thoughts... just like people happily gather at a bar, knowing that they can save themselves a boatload of money (and a risk of a DUI) if they just drink at home.
Interestingly enough, I get little satisfaction from browsing my local superstores. Books are tightly packed together, back to front, requiring me to extricate a book from the shelf in order to see its cover... after a dozen or so of doing that, I'm done. For me, shopping online is just as easy.
For me, the value of physical locations is the people there. If they know you, they may be able to recommend books you might have never found on your own, through random or targeted browsing. You can cultivate a network of peers to hang with, and to help you find new reads. I'm all for this.
The printed card thing is an okay option, for those who do not have their devices with them. But I suspect that soon most people will have some form of digital storage with them at all times (for instance, the memory card in their cellphone), and may just take to using whatever they have to transfer files from store to their device. As long as the store offers options ("Would you like to download, e-mail or take a card for your book?"), that would work fine.
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