I’ll start - I don’t shop a lot, but if I had to buy stuff like hardware parts, I do use Amazon sometimes, but if I can, then I try to use Flipkart. Realizing how it has turned into a monopoly, I try to look for alternative websites, and check if they’re trustworthy.

If I remember correctly, the last three items I’ve bought online were hardware parts from some local websites. The chi-fi IEMs were bought through headphonezone.in, and they were super-fast in delivery - I had to wait for only four days.

  • fart_pickle@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    I used to buy almost everything on Amazon - electronics, books, kitchen/office/cleaning supplies, etc. Back then I was a Prime subscriber so I did not pay for the delivery. As for the delivery, it was blazing fast and the item was always in a mint condition. In case of any issues I was able to sort it out within a day or two. And the price was better than the other online or brick and mortar stores.

    However, at some point the quality of the products went downhill. Support became unhelpful and the prices got higher than the competition. One time I had some issues with the order. It never got delivered and the process to get my money back was way too long and too complex. Eventually I have contacted my bank and reported the fraud. Eventually I got my money back. Turned out that such issues were not an anomaly and a lot of people reported shady sellers.

    Since then I have unsubscribed from Prime and every time I found something I wanted to buy I’ve checked the seller and if there was a website I bought directly from them.

    For past few years I didn’t buy a thing on Amazon.

    As for the alternatives, I don’t have a single one. I have several websites I usually buy from but in general I always do some research and buy the product from the seller that has the best price and is trusted enough.

    • walden@sub.wetshaving.social
      0·
      4 months ago

      Same.

      Unsubscribing from Prime has made zero difference in our lives. They kept advertising “there’s more to prime”, none of which we used, which made me realize we’re paying for all this stuff and getting nothing out of it.

      Combined with it sort of going the way of eBay with all sorts of junk and not much quality stuff… It’s not really that great anymore.

      I used to sort by best reviews, but that can’t be trusted anymore.

    • memfree@lemmy.ml
      0·
      4 months ago

      Cory Doctorow has been calling out this enshittification for years. The whole read is good, but here is a sample chunk:

      Amazon’s monopoly (control over buyers) gives it a monopsony (control over sellers), which lets it raise prices everywhere, at Amazon and at every other retailer, even as it drives the companies that supply it into bankruptcy.

      Amazon is no longer a place where a scrappy independent seller can find an audience for its products. In order to navigate the minefield Amazon lays for its sellers (who have no choice but to sell there), these indie companies are forced to sell out to gators (aggregators), which are now multi-billion-dollar businesses in their own right:

      See also his piece Amazon is a ripoff.

      A combination of self-preferencing (upranking Amazon’s own knock-offs), pay-for-placement (Amazon ads), other forms of payola (whether a merchant is paying for Prime), and “junk ads” (that don’t match your search) turn Amazon’s search-ordering into a rigged casino game.