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?
Federated Amazon alternative coming soon?
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.
This isn’t really an answer to the question, but I just saw a Mastodon post about an online store that’s opening this October called Artisans.coop
It seems to be a cooperatively owned Etsy alternative, (and I can only assume it’s a response to whatever shenanigans went on between Etsy and Silicon Valley Bank.)
I’m not an Amazon fan either. But you may want to know that Newegg is owned by a Chinese company these days.
Fun side story. My first job as a developer, I was working in a small porn company in downtown Chicago. We had just hired a few people, so being the only techy in the company it was on me to order a bunch of hardware from NewEgg.
It was supposed to be delivered days later. But no, they had an employee, just like a regular dude, hop in his car and deliver the order on the same day. This was probably 2006, so same day delivery way NOT a normal thing.
I rarely get to tell this story because I don’t want people to know I started off my (somewhat long) software engineering career in porn and because who cares about this in today’s world.
However, OP mentioned NewEgg, so it fits here.
A combination of Micro Center, FS.com, and eBay for computer parts. Anything worth researching I’ll try and buy direct from the manufacturer.
Dumb cheap stuff still goes to Amazon because if I need a $2 female USB-B to male USB-C adaptor or something like that I’m not willing to go through more than about 5 mins of searching and I know there’s some random blob of letters company on the Amazon marketplace that will give me something that functions. I definitely wait until I have something critical or reach $30+ before actually placing the order though.
B&H Photo Video is a decent place but stock is always iffy. More of a consumer electronics store than newegg in my experience.
For painters, dickblick.com sells Liquitex and Golden paint cheaper than Amazon.
For used books.
Abe Books was acquired by Amazon in 2008. Consider Alibris or Thrift books.
Fuck! I hate when big companies do that! Buy out a competitor and then let you think you’re supporting a small business. I just brought some books from them, too.
Thanks for letting me know.
I know it’s not feasible for everyone, or even most people, but I just generally avoid shopping online as much as possible.
That’s fine if you’re not a geek nor a tinkerer (or a musician), but unfortunately my hobbies aren’t sold in stores anymore.
I miss RadioShack, Fry’s Electronics, and music stores that don’t charge a 30% markup.
I do a lot of tinkering, I just spend months trying to find parts out of random thrift store electronics. It’s much more efficient than spending 30 seconds placing a mouser order.
I’ve come to the conclusion that buying things online is really not better than shopping in person most of the time.
It is if you live in Tasmania
All of Tasmania has about the same population as my city. I’m in the process of moving somewhere a little more rural so we’ll see if I can keep up with shopping in person.
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
