They can withstand several years of losses like this years. People are reluctant to buy over the internet using their credit card. People are scared to do something new, they think this is risky. It's a pain to return stuff. Whenever I've had to return merchandise, I had to package the product up and pay for UPS to ship it.
People like to get their merchandise right away.
If I can find the same product at outpost with a slight price difference, I'll get it from outpost. No sales tax. At least for the time being. I've bought several CDs and DVDs that I couldn't find in local stores.