CNBC: Is Amazon going bricks and mortar? One of the keys to Amazon.com's success — and a major reason for the struggles at brick-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy and Barnes & Noble — is the company's relatively low overhead. Amazon's customers shop online. The company doesn't spend money on retail locations, which allows it to sell products at a lower price than its competitors. But just because Amazon does most of its business in the digital world doesn't mean the e-tailer is immune from real world pricing pressures. Once a customer buys a product from the site, the package still needs to get from point A (Amazon's warehouse) to point B (the customer). And all those shipments add up — totaling $1.36 billion in the second quarter alone. Read more!