Is there an "Avoid Amazon" community for people who want to support smaller online retailers?

Submitted ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨early_riser@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I know there are similar communities like !buyitforlife@slrpnk.net about finding products that you don’t break after a year, and any number of buy<insert_country_here> communities. I’m looking for a community specifically for finding reputable products that aren’t sold on Amazon, regardless of where the seller or buyer is, and regardless of the ethos of the seller beyond making quality products.

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DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I left Amazon 10 years ago. I try to buy direct from manufacturer’s websites, for instance, I just ordered a pocket hole jig from Vevor. I’ve never not gotten something because Amazon was the only source, that’s not a thing as far as I can tell. Everything Amazon sells can be bought elsewhere online, sometimes for less.

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Apytele@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I tried to make one literally called not-Amazon but pretty much everybody had an opinion on how I was doing it wrong and I just didn’t have enough emotional bandwidth to deal with it. Would be happy to be a secondary mod if somebody else has the energy to deal with those people.

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- Canconda@lemmy.ca ⁨14⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  
  everybody had an opinion on how I was doing it wrong and I just didn’t have enough emotional bandwidth to deal with it
  
  Straight up why larger communities often have mods with terrible personalities. They’re the only ones who dgaf enough.
  
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cymbal_king@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I want more on this too. Amazon’s monopoly has made it so hard to find alternative online stores to buy a lot of stuff, particularly if I don’t already know the name of a trusted manufacturer off the top of my head. Even competitor companies like Target and Walmart often offer less selection with higher prices and slower shipping. Also why is it that online retailers seem so scammy these days? Most brands seem to be new/disposable Chinese company names I’ve never heard of and reviews seem inflated/bot generated.

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- QualifiedKitten@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Another issue: multiple times I have gone out of my way to avoid Amazon only to find out the company is still using Amazon for delivery anyway. The most recent one was shoes. I literally went to the physical store to try on shoes, but decided on a color/size combination that they didn’t have in stock. The sales person did their magic to order the shoes for me, and they were still fucking delivered by Amazon.
  
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- VitoRobles@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yep! The monopoly is strong.
  
  Sometimes, the item directly from the company website use Amazon to ship it.
  
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- Bluefruit@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Drop shipping has become a really big thing online. I just watched a video about people creating fake sad stories to push “handmade products”. All cheap mass manufactured shit from China.
  
  Hard to find legit businesses right off the rip since it seems everyone is trying to scam these days.
  
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  - ickplant@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I see it on social media all the time, some sob story about how “we are closing our store of handmade stuff due to personal circumstances, please buy our stuff at 90% off!” And it’s mass produced Chinese crap that is way overpriced even at supposedly “90% off”. People fall for it all the time.
    
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- garretble@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I actually don’t totally agree with the shipping part of this.
  
  Anecdotally, I’ve found that pretty much all of the “big box” stores have good shipping now, and often for free (so long as you hit a price point, of course). And at least in my city, Walmart or Best Buy often ships within a day and it only takes 2-3 days to get the product(s).
  
  Now, there can certainly be a conversation on whether or not it’s good to buy things from these companies, which is a good conversation to have. But their shipping is often good.
  
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- schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Amazon’s monopoly has made it so hard to find alternative online stores to buy a lot of stuff
  
  Where in the world do you live? Don’t you have price comparison websites with a lot of different online stores? We do for my country.
  
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  - AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Gonna guess Idealo and Geizhals. They don’t cover everything, but they’re pretty decent, yeah.
    
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Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I go to ebay and select “Canada Only” when trying to find a particular item. (Am Canadian)

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beeng@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I look around on Amazon if I want to get idea what’s there. Then once I get better idea of what I want I go to eBay and price compare websites and buy there.

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Novocirab@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
For gauging product quality, I’d also throw in repairability, with www.ifixit.com/repairability being a good index. Use this to choose the product model, then buy it used on craigslist/kleinanzeigen/leboncoin/ebay.

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Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
For Germany, this webpage lists a bunch of online retailers, sorted into product categories: lmaa.space

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- beeng@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Geizhalz.de
  
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LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I just buy most things in person. If that fails I do a web search and buy from another platform.

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- AnAmericanPotato@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  If that fails I do a web search and buy from another platform
  
  This is something where I think we could benefit from the wisdom of a community.
  
  Naively searching the web will generally yield >90% results centered around Amazon. Even if you exclude all Amazon domains, you need to sift through all the listicles and “review” sites that are really just Amazon ads with Amazon affiliate links inside.
  
  Same deal if you want to use deal aggregators like slickdeals. The overwhelming majority of posts there are from Amazon, or subsidiaries like Woot.
  
  Heck, recently I bought something direct from a brand’s own web site, only learning that they shipped through Amazon when I got the Amazon tracking number. I’m honestly not sure if I could have known that before completing my order.
  
  It is getting ever harder to avoid giving Jeff Bezos more money.
  
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  - LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Really? You mean like other websites you buy from are secretly owned by Amazon?
    
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birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
No idea, but it’s great that many of y’all and us are doing this. Buy local, buy from worker co-ops, buy from ethical countries!

I use Buybeaver, to boycot the US and the like. Generally I exclude Russia & Belarus, most of the Middle East (Israel included), and North & Middle Africa.

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EntheoNaut@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Unsure how much better ebay and etsy is but I often use amazon to research products and either find a way to direct order or use ebay instead.

One of my hobbies is fucking amazon over. Often I’ll order from both amazon and ebay, the item comes from amazon in tqo days and start using it, when the same item comes from ebay I’ll return the used one back to amazon and keep the ebay bought one.

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- Yaky@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Fuck amazon (and fuck ebay amazon dropshippers too). But you’re that impatient you need to waste time and energy shipping something back and forth? (and likely having that product end up in an amazon discard bin anyway)
  
  Their price already accounts for returns. You are just fucking over the delivery drivers who have quotas to meet.
  
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  - Deckname@feddit.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Thank you for pointing out the obvious, that apparently has not come to that guys mind.
    
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- Zephorah@discuss.online ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Etsy has been more or less swamped with TEMU crap that can be shipped for free. If you don’t offer free shipping TEMU, I mean Etsy, wont show people your stuff. It’s like having the word dead in a YouTube vid, the Algorithm doesn’t like it.
  
  Of course you can bake shipping into the price, but then you’re $5-$20 more expensive than the TEMU with better images section of Etsy.
  
  Sure, there are real people, but they’re hard to find or be.
  
  eBay is a mixed bag, and shipping is often $10-20.
  
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- BillyClark@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Amazon will drop customers who return too many items. They have to protect themselves from ongoing fraud just like every retailer.
  
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faltryka@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That would be great! I cancelled my subscription and have been trying to buy direct for a while now.

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- Zephorah@discuss.online ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Some businesses won’t sell direct, like 3M or most tool brands. But yes, you can often find things on the brand sites.
  
  Amazon and Walmart are for things you can’t find anywhere else, but neither need the membership to make it happen. Strangely, Walmart is better quality lately.
  
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  - early_riser@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    In the case of tools I’ll shop at a hardware store, usually Ace, either in person or on their online store.
    
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  - UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Would Grainger or McMaster Carr fill in the 3M/tool gap?
    
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Serinus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There was, but it’s shipped by Amazon. The site just redirects to an Amazon store.

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TehBamski@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Nice! Thanks for updating us. Joined!

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