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.
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.
Okay, wait, so if were to I purchase internationally from eBay using basic USPS shipping, which costs a whopping $120, plus $200-400 worth of refurbished stuff from the USA to India, which takes around 30 days, and I don’t get my stuff, then am I screwed? What the fuck? I am broke right now, but I was planning to get a laptop in the nearest future from ItsWorthMore (that was the name of the seller you’ve mentioned, right?). Now I am having second thoughts about buying stuff from eBay.
The seller that scammed me was huku huku japan. Apparently this is a very big problem with Japanese sellers, many of them are simply bots that copy and translate listings from Japanese second hand sites, then direct the shipping address to the eBay customer.
They are terrible because they offer zero transparency and missing items are common. Since it is automated, if there was a mistake in Japan (ie original seller lost the item and refunded the buyer) you don’t get your item, or a refund. Basically dropshipping. It’s sickening that they are given a full refund, but keep the eBay buyers money and shipping fee. In total they stole 70$ 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 Amazon. Deleted my account years ago. They treat their workers like shit, don’t pay their taxes, extract wealth and send it overseas, pollute like there’s no tomorrow, but most importantly, Jeff Bezos is not a nice man.
My shopping happens mostly online, at farmers markets and local stores.
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 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.
So for me, for larger things, i use Amazon to find which products i want and i hunt down the website of the store that makes it. For small stuff, or things that may be from a smaller site, or over seas i order on Amazon. I am sure the smaller sites need the boost even more, but Amazon gives me the extra layer of guarantee of satisfaction.
Same. It’s nice to have a way to quickly look through a bunch of options (even if 95% of them are shitty Chinese counterfeits). I’ll even look through the reviews and see if anything glaring jumps out. But I haven’t been a prime member since they put ads in prime video and haven’t really missed it.
Not for about 3 years now.
I took a stand against their horrible practices and frequently pay more for goods I could find there cheaper, plus arrive faster.
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 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.
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 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 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 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.
If you keep picking a single replacement for the big corporation that conveniently carries everything, you’re just following Southpark’s wal-mart pattern. Take two extra seconds and see if you can buy the product directly from the manufacturer’s website, some other niche/specialty retail site, or from a brick & mortar store down the street.
