I sympathise with small businesses, but some have only themselves to blame. We have a small independent hardware shop in our village. I've always tried to use it as my first port of call, but getting pretty fed up of them to be honest for a long time. Last year, I needed some white silicon filler - a pretty basic and common item - went to the hardware shop, no, they've only got black - no, they don't know when they'll have some in stock - so it's back home to order one from Amazon. Firstly, how do they run out of stock of a basic/common item, and secondly, how don't they know when they'll get it back in stock - not even a guess - they didn't say, "we get a delivery every Tuesday" or it's on order to come tomorrow, or whatever. That's not the only time - I've lived in the village for over 20 years and they're always the same - it's hit and miss whether they've got things in stock - sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. It's basic Business 101 to be consistent with your stock - if a shop wants customers, then they need to have what a customer wants, or needs a robust ordering system to order it in within a small number of days.
Same happened a few years ago with our town centre stationery shop (another independent). We used to have a fax machine, and would buy our fax rolls from this shop along with other office supplies. One day, a client sent through a ridiculously long fax which took all our paper (over a hundred sheets of A4). I went down to town in my lunch hour for a fax roll - the shelf was empty. So back to the office and ordered on Amazon for next day delivery! (And no, this wasn't recent and was in the days when fax rolls were a common/basic office commodity).
And I do know what I'm talking about. I was brought up in a convenience store owned by my parents and was serving customers/filling shelves etc from the age of about 9! Our number one rule was never to run out of stock. Whether it was a Mars Bar, a pack of Benson & Hedges, a pint of milk, or the Daily Mirror. My parents spent hours on stock control, stock ordering, etc. This was in the days before computerised tills and stock systems. They had book after book, page after page, of order/sale records of each product, going back years. My father had been a manager of a national chain supermarket in the 50's/60's so it was second nature to him. He'd even check the long range weather forecast to make sure we ordered enough seasonal/impluse items, ice cream and soft drinks for hot weather along with beach balls, fishing nets, buckets & spades, and more magazines, tea/coffee, DIY basics for cold weather. Anything that a customer asked for that we didn't have, was written into the diary, whether something we usually stocked or something we didn't stock. Having stock is number one priority. No good having a pile of Daily Mirrors if a customer wants The Sun. A lot of retail shops, both chains and independents, don't have that mindset and seem to think that people will buy something else - they won't, and worse, they won't come back either.