I think it's short-sighted to close store fronts. The early adopters, the fans and such may be willing to purchase a vehicle sight unseen. Once that base is satisfied, expanding to more conservative purchasers will require tangibles - being able to sit in the car, test drives, answer questions, etc. If that weren't the case, then why were there long lines at the stores when the Model 3 finally reached the store fronts? Given cars tend to be the 2nd biggest purchase of people's lives it's hard "invest" to into something blindly.
For myself, I wasn't even interested until we had an opportunity for a test drive - Tesla wasn't even on my scope. Heck, my wife was the one who booked the test drive and initially I scoffed at it. Of course after that test drive, it took a short time to make the decision to go with a Model S. No regrets.