How about this -- I go to B&N and look around for a book. If I want it *right now* I can pay the B&N price, but if I want to save some money and don't mind waiting, I can carry the book to a kiosk in the store, run the bar code under a scanner, and an order form for amazon.com will pop up. I swipe my credit card and it's shipped to me.

How does the bookstore make out? They get the 4% affiliate commission from amazon.com -- and while I don't know if they usually make more than 4% from the sale of a physical book (I would suspect they do), it's still better than the kick in the butt they get now. Plus, they'd soon figure out how many books they need to keep in stock -- fewer, I believe, since a certain percentage of certain types of customers will want to order.

  Jay