I’ve been trying to avoid shopping on Amazon for several years. For computer parts, I look at Newegg. For pet stuff, Chewy.
But what about all the miscellaneous stuff? What other websites do you trust when it comes to shopping online?
Wayfair occasionally
leboncoin.fr I’m in France. It’s our local craigslist.
EBay
I use Ebay as an alternative for some purchases, but I primarily use Amazon.
hive.co.uk for my UK homies, like Amazon but not a parasite on society generally
I use Target most, I think. For random household stuff I can’t get through Target I use Meijer (it’s a grocery+ store) or the local Ace Hardware and do same day pickup.
Honestly those cover probably 75% of purchases. Everything else I google until I find what I want, then spend a couple hours trying to decide if the site is legit or if I can find the manufacturer direct.
Believe it or not I’ve never used Amazon.
I’m old, I never left eBay. I’ve seen things I want a lot cheaper on there though. I just don’t want to give them my money.
I used to shop on Amazon, but now I’m all eBay too. "It just works"and even though I know it’s another mega-sized company, at least it’s not amazon.
More than once though, I bought something on ebay, only to have it delivered in an Amazon box (because they fulfill for so many companies). Wish I could think of a way to avoid that.
It is against eBay policy for sellers to ship directly from Amazon. Report them and eBay will, after several months, end the offending account. Include pictures of the Amazon packaging. If you want to go the extra mile, go to the vendor’s storefront and search for their items on Amazon. If you find a bunch, tell eBay that the vendor’s storefront is full of relisted Amazon items.
https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/resolving-issues-sellers/reporting-item-issue-seller?id=4022
You can also leave negative feedback stating that the vendor simply ships from Amazon at a marked up price.
It is also against Amazon’s policy for accounts to use Prime shipping perks to sell items. If your package has a gift receipt, the vendor is violating that policy. The receipt will include their account name, and you can report them to Amazon too. If it doesn’t have a gift receipt, they’re not violating any Amazon policy, and there’s nothing you can do on that end.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Best Buy for gadgets.
Honestly I just order from Target. I know the products are legit, and I can usually do same day pickup.
(Lately I’ve preferred to shop in person. The stereotype is true – once you become a mom, getting a Starbies and walking around Target becomes your self-care.)
I googled it, and that’s unfortunately a local shop only available in one country (and it might help others if you specify which country).
I think to be a truly viable Amazon alternative it’d have to be global, for example when I buy from Amazon, I might be buying from somewhere in Europe, and their shipping service handles getting it to me without me even noticing where it’s coming from, which is super neat! 😁
God, I hate Amazon, but god, I love Amazon.
Available in many countries wdym
I believe they’re referring to Target. Wikipedia, dost thou lie to me?
Also that specifies the Aussie Target and US Target are different companies :p
TIL that aussie target was different but same branding
I’ve found that Target ships counterfeit items time to time, as well as shoddy returned items. Amazon does the same. I typically buy my electronics from Best Buy because i know they sort those items into Open Box deals instead.
I’ve been been using Target instead of Amazon Prime. Shipping takes a little longer but 5% off with red card is neat. Where it really lacks is quality control over shipping. With Amazon an item getting damaged during shipping was something like once every few years, if even that. With Target since they don’t control that part of the chain it’s out of their hands, and it feels like 1 out of every 5 orders had something damaged to some degree. The app make it super easy to get a free replacement though.
idk if it still is since I haven’t used Amazons app since, but targets app is so much nicer
Edit: off memory the worst case was some aerosol sunscreen was dented so it was empty on arrival and the the app told me I had to do an exchange in store for it. It’s not that bad, but just stuff that doesn’t really happen with amazon
I’d say just do in store pickup whenever you can. That way, you can refuse to pick up the merchandise if it’s too bad.
I’m a 42 y/o dude, not a mom, but I’m right there with you. My friend and I would walk along the aisle by the side of the building to see what kind of junk they have for sale at the endcaps. Then hit up the electronics and nerd stuff, like Funkos and new movie releases. Finally walk down the food section to pick up groceries. All the while with some drinks in hand. We usually avoid the clothing section unless we need something.
I like Amazon because of getting shit in 2 days. If that makes me evil then so be it.
I can’t judge you for that. I’m just tired of obscenely wealthy people treating everyone else like shit without any repercussions. Bezos has enough money to single-handedly solve so many problems and still be very rich, but instead he blows it on his giant flying dildos while his employees piss in bottles because they can’t afford bathroom breaks.
I’m in a big city (Montreal) and about everything is delivered in less than 24h, I must say it’s pretty convenient…
I usually order form Amazon for convenience, but sometimes use shopping.google.com. I look up every site before ordering though. Some of the sites that show up in the results are sketchy or deceptive. I also sometimes use Ebay if I’m ok with buying something used, or something very cheap of questionable quality (from people who I’m guessing are just resellers of Alibaba crap).
Target. Best Buy. Walmart, if I have to. The Shop app is pretty good.
Bookshop.org for books
Scrolling down to see if anyone else had posted. Good for you.
https://www.abebooks.com/ great for used books.
Abe books is owned by Amazon, unfortunately. Which stinks bc I loved them too.
Someone else just told me. I feel like an idiot.
Abe books was my go-to in college for international editions of engineering textbooks. $40 for a book that cost $450 for the US edition. Only downside was that all the units were in metric and weren’t perfectly converted, so I had to check against a classmate if we had work out of the book. All the info was still the same tho, and it was 10% of the cost, and it let me take open book tests where a digital copy wouldn’t cut it.
Just to add one more option to this list:
Great service, great people, doing good.
I usually just use walmarts website, you can type in your zip code and find the physical walmart where you live and then filter items there are actually in the store, it tells you the price obviously but also the exact isle its in, so once you find what you need it you can just go get it in like 10-20 minutes based on distance
Federated Amazon alternative coming soon?
That’s a brilliant idea.
Until you need to reach out support for a fake 1 tb microsd card
That’s oddly specific.
I would think for it to work properly there would need to be some sort of trust rating. I’ve used other (admittedly not federated) aggregator marketplaces and never had an issue. Not saying issues don’t happen, but they’re not guaranteed. You’d still get your standard PayPal or credit card protections if you used them.
There would be reviews/earrings and In time certain federated instances would gain reputation for trust through some type of way. Certain instances could possibly due verification of some sort
Only if you love long shipping times. I don’t see how warehouses or in-house logistics could be federated when there is no house, so it’d essentially just be private sellers going through traditional shipping avenues like USPS/UPS/FedEx/DHL, etc
If that’s a trade-off you’re willing to make, though, then let’s fucken go
That would be fine since itd take monopoly power away from amazon. Could possibly even leverage things like uber package delivery if someone in your city buys what you sell
I can get behind this tbh. Rarely is anything so important that you need it next day. Businesses often need that, but privately, I don’t. I’m patient.
Walmart, Target for brand name household items. BJs for bulk food. Etsy for miscellaneous small weird items, or eBay when I really want some sketchy Chinese knockoffs.
I’d be happy with step one being open front ends, against the amazon api.
Replacing Uber AND Amazon? And on top of that, this same country got sued a few years back for offering cheap, generic alternatives to expensive drugs to their populace. (Big pharma wasn’t happy)
India is making a lot of good moves.
That’s amazing
yeah it’s called shopping local