Interestingly, the one place you could do this (walk in and buy a new washer/dryer/fridge and drive away with it) was Sears which has closed their stores in many major metro areas and are basically going out of business...
This is only true of a small portion of the sears with warehouse attached (aka the ones not in malls). Even then, I purchased my last two dishwashers there, and in both cases it took a couple days to deliver.
If you want something right now, go to one of the scratch and dent appliance places. Same basic deal as hd/lowes/bestbuy when it comes to appliances, just about the only ones those stores have in stock are the ones that got returned.
I worked at a Sears when I was younger. The location didn't have a large warehouse attached (smaller one, but it was only for smaller home and garden/electronics items), but there was one in town so for some items we'd sell and they'd go there to pick up. I do recall at points where items were sold from the store, but that was a rarity.
