I never understood this phenomena myself. Even during its prime. The entire b&m model was so outdated to me. I used to prefer shopping online via Amazon.

Then they enshittified the platform, quality of goods dropped tremendously. Then the stories of poor treatment of warehouse workers and last mile delivery workers was the last straw to me.

Now my retail shopping consists of preferring local groceries and trying to buy direct from brands that I like. I don’t even care about the free shipping anymore. It’s all a farce these days and it’s just an added cost to items now (even if you don’t return the item).