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Good advice. I will treat the amazon site as nothing more than a catalogue I can peruse. Any purchase decisions will make me find the source of the product. Thanks!
I also look up an Amazon listing on eBay too and usually the shipping is free even without prime.
Any suggestions on buying lots of cheap random electronic parts for projects and avoiding racking up shipping costs from ordering from multiple sites? E.g. I had to order ~20 different cheap parts (boost converter, charge controller, micro switches, a cheap devboard, USB breakouts, etc) for a personal hobby project recently. I used Amazon unfortunately. Curious about good alternatives for this kind of stuff.
Same boat, somewhat. I keep a digikey cart and when it gets big enough, I’ll order there. There’s also digikey marketplace but the shipping costs aren’t great. I need to start comparing prices on Newegg and Mouser to Amazon.
The Amazon shit is sketchy but it’s cheap and fast for things like interconnects, boost modules, i2c boarded sensors, etc.
Just aliexpress has all the same stuff cheaper but when you need a widget by the weekend, it doesn’t work.
If you can find a unique product or part number for the product, searching that will often bring up a short list of sites that sell that exact product.
I haven’t bought a single thing off Amazon in over ten years, since they pissed me off. I don’t even comparison shop Amazon to see whether I’m paying more, that’s how much I hate them. I’ll pay more to not use Amazon. Also, nothing I’m buying online is something I can’t do without, and sometimes I just don’t buy it--shocking, I know.
This isn’t always an option, unfortunately. Some books for example are only available on Amazon. When I go to the author’s website, they just link to Amazon.
If you live in USA, because lots of countries have a replica of Amazon but with local shops.
I tried that last year with a power supply, but the little German company that made it sold it only on Amazon :-(
Yeah, this is frustrating. Especially when they don’t tell you they use Amazon for fulfillment, and Amazon shows up at your door unexpectedly.
I’ve no issue with amazon offering an actual service but if we CAN find the product somewhere else, we should.
Try to not use google in the process too.
Hang on now. I’m shopping on the Internet because I don’t know how to buy stuff in real life.
How am I supposed to not use Google?
Go into your browser settings and pick a search engine thats not google
Im currently using DuckDuckGo No ai
I used Ecosia for years up until recently. everyone has a preference, but there are plenty of other options.
I know how to buy stuff in real life. I’m in the middle of nowhere and there is very little here to buy in real life. If I really need the mouse skids I just ordered yesterday, Amazon it is!
Sadly, I can spend hours searching for a company that sells mouse skids only to find they are available through Ali and requires a 4 to 6 week shipping and will cost $2 for 60 plus an extra $15US vs $5 per 60 with free shipping on Amazon in 5 days.
I can hate Amazon all you want me to, but the reality of cost and shipping times sets in pretty quickly.
I may not be good at googling, but I’m not sure how you’re paying more on ali express than Amazon.
Mass online marketplaces are just advertizing companies that get commissions instead of upfront payments that people mistake for an actual store.
Ah yes. Amazon is basically a drop shipper with reviews and stateside warehouses and their reviews are worthless. They weren’t, but they are now.
I’m not sure how you justify the cost.
I’m not sure how you justify the cost
Popularity probably… It’s a way for smaller companies to be found if I were to guess…
One big antitrust issue with Amazon is that they require vendors to use their fulfillment services in order to get the best terms on being listed on Amazon: prime shipping, etc.
That deal for shipping/fulfillment itself isn’t too bad, even if they charge a pretty high price to sellers for the service, because the seller is actually getting something valuable in return, and it’s hard for Amazon to promise fast shipping not in their control.
But the FTC lawsuit a while back alleged that Amazon does more than that. They downgrade the search results of anyone who isn’t a paying advertiser, so they’re squeezing sellers in more ways than one. And worse, part of the contract for fulfillment is a prohibition on competing with Amazon’s listed price.
So if you’re selling something that you need $30 to earn a profit, and it costs you 40% to list on Amazon, you’ll need to list it at $50 on Amazon in order to make your profit, and you’ve hamstrung yourself from selling that same thing for $30 on your own site and turning the same profit by cutting Amazon out. That’s what’s anticompetitive and harms the consumer, even when that consumer intentionally avoids Amazon and goes straight to the seller’s own site.
ITT, people show how little effort they’re willing to make to avoid supporting evil.
Unfortunately, there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. And it becomes even more difficult after we are stuck with a few mega monopolies that own everything. No matter where you buy from, your money is supporting the exploitation of workers.
I need a browser extension that does this for me.
I will put that on my ideas notes folder and forget about it for 15 years, then implement it
Are you really still repping Honey?
Have issue with product. Return process is abysmal and chargeable. End up wishing you bought from Amazon.
Would you let your fellow man suffer and the earth be trashed, just for the convience of a return policy?
Not saying you are one of these people at all, but there are folks out there who for example, will buy 3 pairs of the same shoes, try them on at home, and then return the other two. For those I say, just go to the store. This is over consumption. The energy needed to move all this product has consquences… from labor and energy resources ,human health, and planet health.
I find it quite selfish and lame to use the excuse, “but its convienent!”
I understand its difficult for certain electronics, but, for most things, if you can look physically at the item before buying it, the chance youll need to return it go down because you can judge the quality before buying it.
For real brands this is the way. If you want to get the one made by hhsjneaq or something, then use Amazon.
Simply not true. You can find those on other sites, too. Often straight from Alibaba Express.
Hhsjneaq isn’t a real company.
It’s a drop ship.
Maybe that can work but you can’t get rid of Amazon just by shopping elsewhere. It’s important to also push for anti-monopoly legislation and enforcement, and of course that labor law be properly enforced so that Amazon has to pay people better wages.
That company is more often than not Aliexpress.
Nah, I’ve boycotted scamazon since December 2020. I’m buying more things from physical shops. Second hand things like books or dvds I still get from ebay.
I recently realized how cheap old books are on ebay. I always sort from closest distace first.
