Yep, I agree. Something needs to be done about the back end; eg. distributors. Either tariffs need to be lowered or import taxes, so that distributors can give a fair price to the retailers, who in turn can give a fair price to the consumers. It's a big long chain of mishaps, and it's unfortunate that the retail sector cop all the abuse for it.
For some physical things, I won't buy online as I'd rather have a play with it beforehand and know that the store's there if I have issues, but for a lot of things where I know they'll work (eg. new shoes I bought, exact same as my old shoes, different colour), I got them for $88AUD delivered from the US vs. >$150AUD here. Given that I KNOW they'll fit perfectly, there's no way in hell I'll buy them around.
The flipside to that is I also recently bought Vibram Five Fingers; I needed to try these on in a store to get the right fit and as a result decided to buy a pair from the shop I was in for their help, but my future purchases of them will be online now I know my sizing.