This isn’t exactly where this belongs so feel free to delete this. I’m mildly infuriated there is no usable alternative to Amazon.com. I’m more than willing to buy products elsewhere, but it’s so easy to default to Amazon. Please help.
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Find what you want on Amazon, look at reviews, and then go to the actual website of the producer and buy it directly from them. It’s not hard, it just takes an extra step.
You’ll probably buy less junk, too.
Yeah but sometimes the only producers are QAMEQHEJAK and you can’t even find what real brand sells your thing. Or sometimes they don’t do direct sales.
That means you’re buying mass produced shit from China, the brand means nothing, and you’ll have better luck on aliexpress.
I do this all the time. If it’s going to be cheap chinesium grade stuff I’d rather buy it from AliExpress for cheaper and wait a couple days
It’s not hard, it just takes an extra step.
Is there some version of “hard” that’s not related to extra steps?
Yes… Something that’s actually difficult? I’m not sure what you’re asking.
Amazon is one issue, but I think the larger enshittification is the proliferation of “marketplace” websites that allow any random imported junk to appeat right alongside quality products with actual manufacturer support.
It isn’t really a good alternative, but Walmart.com has nearly as wide of a selection and the same delivery times.
Not that Walmart is a better company.
Idk, Amazon doesn’t even exist in my country
alternatives would be possible if they wouldn’t be forcibly removed from Amazon from being present in alternatives
Companies like Getir which had attempted expansion were pushed out, meaning they couldn’t even begin to attempt a secondary market similar to Amazon
Turkey and likely other European nations has a lot of competition regarding this,
Getir originates from Turkey, alongside that there is n11, Hepsiburada, Trendyol, idefix, and pttAVM.
No.
Amazon is what it is because it creates an easier path for America to buy cheap, as Walmart and McDonald’s has done before to great microscopic economic success, due to the failures of our economic paradigm that shrinks wages and pushes manufacturing offshore for corporate profit.
We need higher wages, which create higher prices, which corrects for the misdeeds of our economic exploitation of foreign economies.
We have offloaded our economic burden onto other poorer nations, and that needs to stop. Pay a living wage and accept the higher cost at lower profits. Doing otherwise is an economic ouroboros that only swallows the easy part at the sake of the whole in the name of kicking an inflationary can down the road so that yachts can grow larger as the foundation of this country in undermined for icarian profits.
Fuck your CEO, pay us so they can pay us something and they can have less than everything, so they can keep from having nothing less than more than we can achieve through reluctant violence.
I wish it’d had stayed in the USA, Amazon has upset economies in other countries too.
They’re also shit to work for.
The one I worked at I heard a spoiled rich manager laughing about how “Amazon wont pay a living wage due to its great relationship with the local community”.
Edit; i worded the first sentence badly. I dont want Amazon inflicted upon anyone.
Climb down off of your soapbox. Amazon is what it is because of early strategic decision making and long term shittiness. I’m talking about aggregation and exposure to semi-local partners.
Isn’t this what Etsy has tried to do? Miserably failed at it recently I think.
Wtf.
One thing I’ve realized about Amazon, at least lately, is that they don’t always have the lowest prices. For many items, I can go directly to the manufacturer’s site and get the same product for a lower or equal price with free shipping. If I have to wait a couple extra days, so be it. At least I’m not lining Bezos’ pockets.
When I want a cheap plastic thingy, or cheap hardware and electronics to play around with, I get it off aliexpress. It’s virtually the same stuff as amazon just for the patient. Most of that stuff is made in China already even if I get it from an online or local brick and mortar retailer, so it seems more direct to me, avoiding needless retransportation, warehousing and waste.
When I want a quality thing I buy it from a local shop, especially when I need to see it or compare before buying. I can often find a Canadian online retailer too with just a bit of sleuthing.
I can often find a Canadian online retailer too with just a bit of sleuthing I’ve tried this a few times and most of them end up just being drop shippers with their own website dedicated to a type of product (and are questionably Canadian), sometimes shipping from whatever country warehouse to me. Any ideas how to tell vs an actual located in Canada shop?
Look at their address and their warehouse, look at the website of the brands of products they sell and find their address. Are they Canadian or are they just a reseller of the same stuff coming from overseas?
This right here! If you are looking at something on amazon go to Ali or Temu.
Ebay and Aliexpress seem to work just fine. I’ve only once ever ordered something from Amazon.
I’m trying to use Ebay more often but the source is hard to verify.
Amazon sources are equally hard to verify. The only difference is Amazon has a little more customer satisfaction power (by returns to a main warehouse) than ebay (now warehouses but still favors the customer). There’s continuously new ways to get counterfeit product sold on Amazon.
Honestly I’ve been enjoying going to stores in person again. It definitely takes some getting used to after the convenience of online shopping has been a part of my life pretty much since I was in highschool, but I think the change is worth it. I’ll just make a list of things that I need and when the list gets big enough I just make a day of it and just go to a bunch of different stores.
I kinda forgot how satisfying it can be to actually go shopping. I got a couple new pillows and some new bed sheet sets last month and it was so nice being able to feel what I was buying before I actually got it. If I’d gotten the pillows from Amazon I guarantee I’d get something cheap and not find out until they show up that they are awful. And I probably wouldn’t return them and just justify it and convince myself they were better than my old pillows because they are “new.”
My issue with this is that, especially as a foreigner living abroad, I cannot always answer which shop might have the items I’m looking for.
I wish Google Maps allowed searching for shops by their inventory, like it does searching for restaurants by their menu. Even better, an open web protocol like RSS where shop websites can communicate to all crawlers what items are being sold where and which are out of stock, so that it’s not a Google Maps monopoly but an ecosystem…
If you cannot afford to shop elsewhere, then I don’t see how it’s reasonable to fault you for that. But if you can justify spending a little less and want to avoid it, then I’m sure you know what I would suggest. Do or do not, a wise man once said.
Are you frustrated that you can’t muster the willpower to avoid shopping there? The website was literally designed to get you addicted to it. The man himself has said as such. There are browser extensions that will block specific url families. I wouldn’t be surprised if entire extensions were designed for that website specifically.
I just wish there was an aggregator that isn’t Walmart or Amazon or Temu. I try really hard to spread my shopping around and actually buy local when I can. It just sucks Amazon is so easy.
What kind of stuff have you been buying that you couldn’t find elsewhere (at a competitive price)?
I buy a moderate amount of my stuff online and was able to almost entirely avoid Amazon this year. The only exception was a phone display where Amazon had a LCD-variant for ~30€ while all others only had an OLED for ~90€.
I dont think its about availability, more about the convenience of having everything in one place and especially the rating system (which of course only works if you have a huge customer base and is also being exploited so not really a plus for Amazon anymore)
Not sure what you are looking for but I can easily buy the same stuff on eBay or Walmart or directly from the retailer. I do a search of Amazon and then google the same product to look at different website options.
One problem I’ve been having with ebay lately is that I’ve ordered items and they’re coming drop shipped from Amazon or Walmart.
They’re always sellers with ratings in the upper 90s and with like 1000ish or less reviews. A lot of times they list is as only having 1 or 2 left in stock. I’ve been having some luck going into the reviews and seeing people say “came in an Amazon box” to avoid them.
It’s one thing to wholesale stuff and resell it, it’s another to just drop ship it from Amazon and Walmart. Been ordering on ebay for many years and I’ve never seen this before.
That happened to me a few times before. I got the shipment in 2 days through Amazon even though I ordered through eBay.
Not perfect but a lot of big box stores offer free shipping. I usually will check Walmart, Best Buy, Target B&H and Google shopping. I’m pretty sure they all offer free shipping after $35. Chewy for animal stuff is really good too. Also check the manufacturer, I recently bought a gift that way and it was cheaper and had more selection options than dumb Amazon.
Came to say the same. I’m not sure how much my location plays a role, but B&H is my go-to for many electronics, Best Buy is a backup, and Target is up there too. I can pre-order BB and Tgt as well, giving me a few stores to choose from locally. The physical stores need to compete with Amazon to survive, so they are
Outside of NA there are.
