We certainly appreciate the feedback, and you are not the only person who has requested / required that we open our locations to the public, so hopefully the following (be it right or wrong) will help explain the rationale.
We will do our best to reassure you about the security of our transactional web site. We do not store your credit card information on our servers and your Postal and Billing address are conserved strictly for internal use of customer service and used strictly to serve you better. The same goes for your email address. Even if you live locally, we offer several affordable shipping options, and shipping is always free for orders over 200$ shipping within Canada and the United States. If you live close enough to visit one of our locations, you would likely receive your package the day after you order it. Should you not be happy with the products, we offer an excellent return and exchange policy.
For more information on our security and privacy policy or on the shipping fees, please use the links below:
robotshop.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/8/4/security–privacy
robotshop.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/49/4/how-much-for-shipping
If you do not feel comfortable ordering online, we invite you to contact our customer service department to place your order:
1-866-627-3178 Toll-Free (In North America)
450-420-1446
+33 (0) 8 00 00 18 37 Free (Within Europe)
To address each of your issues:
You are correct that making a purchase “sight unseen” for several thousand dollars may not be easy, though we are here to help you and try to assuage any fears you may have and answer any technical questions you need answered. Note that items in this price range are almost all special order and it is highly unlikely we would have a demo to see in person. For the professional category of products, we are happy to take telephone calls in order to guide you to the right product.
Correct, but given the highly technical nature of the products we carry and the wide array of products, product specialists such as myself often need time to research answers. We feel that taking one hour to create an article / video which can benefit thousands of potential customers is time better spent than taking 1 hour to explain the same thing to one customer.
Only a small fraction of the products we carry are setup for retail sale. Note too that products for retail sale in Quebec require that the packaging be in French - this would eliminate ~95% of all products we carry from being sold in a retail setting.
This having been said, RobotShop is constantly changing and it may be the case one day that we find a way to make a retail location more profitable than an online store.
