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.
B&H photo is good for electronics
I’m avoiding Amazon for many years now. To be fair I usually just… Don’t buy things?
But when I have to, I try to go local shop first, second hand websites/markets, other websites and eventually Amazon, I guess? It never came to this.
I have spent 10/20% more than the price on Amazon though.
Last but not least, for niece stuff I have used Amazon as a sort of catalogue to find out what exists and then look for things further by other means.
I use Mercado Libre because in my country we no longer have easy access to dollars to buy in Amazon and they don’t accept our currency (I’m Venezuelan)
I use Amazon pretty often, cause I get shit in 2 days to my house.
I use it out of laziness. Despite all the shit they still have great customer service. About a year ago I ordered a £150 multi-tool and they accidentally sent me a £200 reciprocating saw. Due to a complicated living situation at the time it would have taken me about 6 months to send the wrong tool back so they just said I could keep it and refunded me so I could buy the other tool again.
The other thing I like is that I’ll just see a price and buy it easily. I’ve often shopped around and found something cheaper but then the whole purchasing process is terrible. They add on a bunch of extra costs, then make me create an account, then add on more costs. By the end I could’ve paid less and got it quicker from Amazon. Not always the case but it happens often enough that I will just go to Amazon half the time.
But I guess the main reason is that I hate being forced to create accounts and so many shops require that for no good reason.
I prefer to have to jump through additional hoops to avoid ever using amazon. they keep their prices low by paying staff badly and treating them like shit. I refuse to participate
I use it a lot because it’s stupidly convenient - most things arrive in 1-2 days at the same or less cost than a store and i can get jelly beans, a screwdriver, and socks in one order. I guess that’s how they get you. I have started trying to do more ‘buy online; pickup in store’ to support some local businesses.
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.
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.
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.
We ditched Prime a few months back after they pulled the adverts fuckery with Video. It wasn’t a terribly difficult decision, what with buying less and less from Amazon over the past couple of years.
What it has highlighted though, is how effectively Amazon has fucked our high streets. You want boot laces? Then your options are one chain store or online somewhere and that’s it. Which I guess has made me more mindful of what I’m buying.
I use it as one of several sites…there are some things they are still the best / most convenient for. For cheap chinese crap (which is often all I need for small projects etc) temu and aliexpress now undercut amazon considerably. For quality items that are ok to buy used, ebay.
ANYTHING that costco sells will almost always be the best choice, but they have a very limited selection.
So in short, amazon is very much still in play, but as one of many, not the go-to anymore.
Unfortunately the deliveries to the various pickup boxes is critical. I’ve tried looking into general delivery to a post office or to look at specific (eg Home Depot) pickup options with no success.
I used to use eBay instead but due to a recent incident I feel uncomfortable using it. I bought an item and after there was still no tracking number for a week or two, I contacted the seller. More time passed and they told me to wait again. The next time I just ask for a refund.
They ghost me and I decide to escalate to eBay, they have great protections right? Money back guarantee right? Turns out, if you do not report the item within 30 days of purchasing, you can’t do shit. Ok, I’ll just make a fuss to customer service. EBAY HAS NONE. There is a contact page but it is all automated and won’t apply to my item. Other than that there is no way to contact them. Abosolutely zero. There are no emails, they sometimes have a phone number but it changes and doesn’t even work most of the time. People are even saying yo DM their twitter!
I had a case where an item never arrived from Amazon. I simply contacted their customer service, answered their questions and got a refund within 10 mins.
It feels so shitty that just by trusting the seller for 2 months, I got robbed and there’s nothing I can do. Amazon, you are at least guaranteed to speak to a human and get some help.
And also eBay reviews suck, the seller that scammed me had over 90% feedback, tens of thousands sold items, so I assumed they were legit. All of their negative reviews were the same issue I had and they are still on the platform.
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The seller that scammed me was huku huku japan. Apparently this is a very big problem with Japanese sellers, many of them are simply bots that copy and translate listings from Japanese second hand sites, then direct the shipping address to the eBay customer.
They are terrible because they offer zero transparency and missing items are common. Since it is automated, if there was a mistake in Japan (ie original seller lost the item and refunded the buyer) you don’t get your item, or a refund. Basically dropshipping. It’s sickening that they are given a full refund, but keep the eBay buyers money and shipping fee. In total they stole 70$ from me.
Similar to you, I expected long shipping times. I’m in the US and was buying from Japan. Since the shipping times are so long, I gave the seller a lot of leniency. Especially because tracking only occurs after the item has already left japan. This unknowingly disqualified me from a refund, or any help at all from eBay.
If you are looking for cheap refurbished laptops, I recommend PC Sever and Parts. Ive bought from them before and they have good customer service and generous free warranty (90 days). I work IT and I was satisfied with the refurbishment. There were some covered scratches, but it was clean and thermal paste was changed.
I had a lightly damaged cable internal cable. They offered to pay for return shipping and refund me, but I just asked for replacement cables. They quickly shipped me 2 new ones free of charge and shipping.
I avoid it basically wherever possible, but sometimes people give me Amazon giftcards.
I don’t buy a huge amount of stuff off the internet, transacting in person is often more convenient. Imo Banggood, Aliexpress, dhgate, taobao, etc. are often some of the best alternatives, because a lot of Amazon is just selling that same stuff, but for more money.
Local. It builds community and helps keep everyone fed and housed
I normally try to find a niche site in my country specialising in the thing I’m trying to buy (like OP said in the last paragraph)
I have never ordered something from Amazon. It was introduced in my country a few years back, but it isn’t really that good of a site (at least the few times I have visited it).
Like many here, I do not want to support a monopolistic company like Amazon. Luckily I live in a country where I have better options. I tend to buy things from plenty of well rated sites. Environmentally conscious sites if I can.
I could see myself buying from them if there genuinely isn’t another option and it is something I really need, but that has yet to happen.
I really hate to admit it, but I do use amazon quite a bit. It’s not “like me” to use a company or service I despise, despite the truth of “no ethical consumption under capitalism,” some businesses are just so evil that I feel it is wrong to support them in any way, even at the cost of convenience.
Here’s the situation though. I rely on foodstamp benefits to be able to afford food. Amazon allows me to buy food in bulk online with my ebt card. I also have a disability that makes it prohibitively difficult to go to the grocery store as often as I would need to, and bulk buying online also stretches the benefits I get much further than regular grocery visits. Walmart and Target also now allow ebt cards for online food shopping, but they didn’t used to, and they are evil as well!
I rationalize using amazon by telling myself that since mostly the only thing I get from them is food via ebt card, then it’s really just money going straight from my state government to amazon, and my state government (just like most others) gives amazon free money anyway, so I may as well get something out of their capitalist sweetheart deal too.
