Nah, you're thinking about it all wrong. Amazon changed their position in recent years, and is now in favor of requiring online retailers to pay sales tax to every jurisdiction where they sell items. And here's why:
Let's say you're a small-time 4x4 parts shop in Raleigh, North Carolina. You open up a website and start selling parts online all over the country. You box stuff up, call UPS, and out the door it goes. Easy Peasy. But now you find out that you owe sales tax to the State of California and Orange County, California. You don't know what the state tax rates, county tax rates, and municipal tax rates are for every single address in the country. And even if you did, who is going to keep up with all of that and make sure you send out the checks to every single tax jurisdiction where they're owed? You can't do it.
But you can sign up through Amazon, pay them a cut out of every sale, and they'll do it for you.
The big guys don't care. They've got the staff and the resources to take care of it. What they really want is a barrier to entry for smaller companies. And while they're at it, why not set up that barrier in such a way so that they get a cut out of every sale?
Also, big box stores? No way. Best Buy can't compete with Amazon. Period. They're spending tens of thousands of dollars a month to keep a store open, just so you can come in, look at something, realize it's cheaper (or IN STOCK!!) at Amazon and order it from there. On your door step in two days time.
