Large shops optimize for inventory. The stores I keep going back to optimize for a conversation you did not know you needed.
In a smaller city the buyer often works the desk. They remember that you bounced off translated fiction last winter and still put a thin volume on the counter “in case.” That is not a recommendation engine. It is taste with a memory.
I do not think this scales, and that is the point. A room that can only hold two thousand spines has to choose, and choosing is the whole craft.