We need a new Amazon

Find what you want on Amazon, look at reviews, and then go to the actual website of the producer and buy it directly from them. It's not hard, it just takes an extra step.

You'll probably buy less junk, too.

Yeah but sometimes the only producers are QAMEQHEJAK and you can't even find what real brand sells your thing. Or sometimes they don't do direct sales.
I do this, but be warned some companies use Amazon for fulfillment. I have ordered directly from manufacturer websites and still ended up with an Amazon package at my door. I just make a note to find a different brand if I ever need that thing again.

If you don't mind waiting a while for whatever it is you're buying, ali-express isn't too bad. If you're near a city and it's not too specialized of a thing you need you can probably find it at a a brick and mortar store.

I don't live in the US but here Amazon is like a last resort if we can't find what we're looking for.

Idk, Amazon doesn't even exist in my country

This is always the problem: Monopolies are popular with consumers because their centralization makes everything easy. The trappings of convenience.

Buy stuff directly from stores. Every time I've looked, the price elsewhere often exactly matches what Amazon charges because their pricing algorithms are constantly price matching anyhow.

But not shipping. And sometimes, that's the difference.
I'd honestly pay a bit more to buy from better vendors. Price, options, shipping aren't the things why I end up using Amazon mostly (despite not liking it).

It's the fact that if I need to return something I just click 2 buttons and no questions asked a guy shows up at my door tomorrow to pick it up and my refund is back in my account by the evening.

If other vendors started doing that without all the caveats and conditions and such, I'd never look back.

I'm more than willing to buy products elsewhere, but it's so easy to default to Amazon.

One of the practices that the FTC sued Amazon over was their requirement that sellers list their lowest prices on Amazon and outsource fulfillment (and give up a huge cut) to Amazon in order to qualify for Prime and good search results.

The result is that even though most sellers can afford to sell on their own store and keep a larger percentage of the sales revenue, they're not allowed to actually undercut Amazon's prices. And so Amazon has shielded itself from price competition, despite engaging in pretty expensive practices (free 2 day shipping for most items and places, free 1-day or even same day shipping for some items in some places). And they did it with contracts instead of actually competing.

We need a new Amazon rain forest.

I tend to buy straight from vendors. like I ordered some underwear straight from Hanes the other day.

See here I was thinking that's be crazy but I'd rather do that

When I want a cheap plastic thingy, or cheap hardware and electronics to play around with, I get it off aliexpress. It's virtually the same stuff as amazon just for the patient. Most of that stuff is made in China already even if I get it from an online or local brick and mortar retailer, so it seems more direct to me, avoiding needless retransportation, warehousing and waste.

When I want a quality thing I buy it from a local shop, especially when I need to see it or compare before buying. I can often find a Canadian online retailer too with just a bit of sleuthing.

For cheap plastic "thingies" if you know a friend with a 3D printer they can be of massive help. Even if you don't have such a friend, there are domestic businesses that will print and ship things for you. Granted they aren't always as cheap, but easily better for the environment due to being more local.
I can often find a Canadian online retailer too with just a bit of sleuthing I've tried this a few times and most of them end up just being drop shippers with their own website dedicated to a type of product (and are questionably Canadian), sometimes shipping from whatever country warehouse to me. Any ideas how to tell vs an actual located in Canada shop?
- Look at their address and their warehouse, look at the website of the brands of products they sell and find their address. Are they Canadian or are they just a reseller of the same stuff coming from overseas?
This right here! If you are looking at something on amazon go to Ali or Temu.
- Quitting Amazon to use AliExpress or Temu is like quitting drinking alcohol by switching to heroin instead.
  
  Environmental issues aside, cheap disposable shit that you have to replace constantly actually costs you way more in the long run.

No.

Amazon is what it is because it creates an easier path for America to buy cheap, as Walmart and McDonald's has done before to great microscopic economic success, due to the failures of our economic paradigm that shrinks wages and pushes manufacturing offshore for corporate profit.

We need higher wages, which create higher prices, which corrects for the misdeeds of our economic exploitation of foreign economies.

We have offloaded our economic burden onto other poorer nations, and that needs to stop. Pay a living wage and accept the higher cost at lower profits. Doing otherwise is an economic ouroboros that only swallows the easy part at the sake of the whole in the name of kicking an inflationary can down the road so that yachts can grow larger as the foundation of this country in undermined for icarian profits.

Fuck your CEO, pay us so they can pay us something and they can have less than everything, so they can keep from having nothing less than more than we can achieve through reluctant violence.

I wish it’d had stayed in the USA, Amazon has upset economies in other countries too.

They’re also shit to work for.

The one I worked at I heard a spoiled rich manager laughing about how “Amazon wont pay a living wage due to its great relationship with the local community”.

Edit; i worded the first sentence badly. I dont want Amazon inflicted upon anyone.
- “Amazon wont pay a living wage due to its great relationship with the local community”.
  
  So, taken by a normal person, not aquainted with corpo speak... that is some astounding anti-logic.
  
  But if you know a bit of corpo, what that actually means is something like:
  
  We have the local city government by the balls, greatly overexagerated the economic benefit our warehouse would bring to the city, got them to subsidize our construction costs, relax zoning laws or fees, change tax laws or give us a special carve out so that we pay less than if anyone else tried to build a warehouse here...
  
  ... and now if the city gov goes for policies/laws we don't like, we'll just shut down this location, I'll go work the same job somewhere else, everyone else is unemployed, and then we'll tell the media that's because of the city government, and they'll likely lose their elected positions.
- Also Amazon EU I think is based in Ireland which is kind of a tax haven. We can't even cooperate within the EU to prevent tax havens...
Climb down off of your soapbox. Amazon is what it is because of early strategic decision making and long term shittiness. I'm talking about aggregation and exposure to semi-local partners.
- Isn't this what Etsy has tried to do? Miserably failed at it recently I think.
- Wtf.

Honestly after moving into our current home, we were able to avoid Amazon almost completely. We don't buy cookware, as carbon steel, cast iron, and stainless steel cookware lasts at least decades if not forever; we have way too many mugs from market and thrift store; and all of our clothes are thrifted with some from Costco.

we get groceries from farmers market, local ethnic stores, or super market. We get shelf stable products like toilet paper or drinks from Costco in bulk. We barely replace our electronic, because I would fix them with spare parts from ifixit and eBay; when it do need to get replaced, I get them from bestbuy or manufacture. We get most of the cleaning products from refil store or supermarket; we would buy soap from farmers market or local supplier.

We would only buy very obscure product from Amazon, like replacement knob for pot lid etc, but they are very very rare. One particular product we unfortunately relied on Amazon is the bamboo electric toothbrush brush head, we are trying to find some local salers that carry that, but cannot find any.

its the obscure parts and items that get me going back to Amazon...
Same here. Sometimes the same/next day shipping can help in an emergency, but otherwise it's local if possible, or direct from the vendor if not.

Amazon's shipping has declined and everyone else's has caught up to the point it's not much of a difference anymore.

There are people who sell products who are not affiliated with Amazon

Shocking I know

Those are getting harder and harder to find. I've had a number of occasions now where I went directly to a brand's website or even their physical store in an attempt to avoid Amazon, only to receive the product in an Amazon box delivered by an Amazon courier anyway.

The most recent physical store was shoes: I found a size/style that fit well, but wanted a different color. I ordered the preferred color through the in store salesperson, but it was still fulfilled by Amazon.
- Yeah. Lots of places may just use the Amazon warehouse side of the business. Especially if they offer products on Amazon.
I take full responsibility for myself. I try to shop independently when possible.

One thing I’ve realized about Amazon, at least lately, is that they don’t always have the lowest prices. For many items, I can go directly to the manufacturer’s site and get the same product for a lower or equal price with free shipping. If I have to wait a couple extra days, so be it. At least I’m not lining Bezos’ pockets.

But there is... Walmart.com in the US offers basically the same and often with 2 day shipping and in most cases same easy return.

I think he was hoping for something better than Amazon, as opposed to worse.
Every big name store has something similar the issue is that its worse or the same as Amazon, never better.

Probably not aligned with the OP but id like a place that aggregates quality things from all over no cheap sketchy plastic things but also not just common big items that are already in every big box store.

Outside of NA there are.

I've never used Amazon, so I really don't need a new one. Or the old one.

I've bought the occasional book from it. It doesn't seem that useful or good value for other things (I've only lived in Europe and Australia)
- My problem is the algorithm. There is no way to browse categories and drill down into the features to find what you are actually looking to find.
  
  You search for xxx company Product, and you may get that product on the first page, but it will be surrounded by dozens of cheap alternatives. I find a lot of those alternatives aren't comparable to the one I actually seek.
  
  If you don't know the specific product you are looking for, you will never be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Not sure what you are looking for but I can easily buy the same stuff on eBay or Walmart or directly from the retailer. I do a search of Amazon and then google the same product to look at different website options.

Honestly I've been enjoying going to stores in person again. It definitely takes some getting used to after the convenience of online shopping has been a part of my life pretty much since I was in highschool, but I think the change is worth it. I'll just make a list of things that I need and when the list gets big enough I just make a day of it and just go to a bunch of different stores.

I kinda forgot how satisfying it can be to actually go shopping. I got a couple new pillows and some new bed sheet sets last month and it was so nice being able to feel what I was buying before I actually got it. If I'd gotten the pillows from Amazon I guarantee I'd get something cheap and not find out until they show up that they are awful. And I probably wouldn't return them and just justify it and convince myself they were better than my old pillows because they are "new."

My issue with this is that, especially as a foreigner living abroad, I cannot always answer which shop might have the items I’m looking for.

I wish Google Maps allowed searching for shops by their inventory, like it does searching for restaurants by their menu. Even better, an open web protocol like RSS where shop websites can communicate to all crawlers what items are being sold where and which are out of stock, so that it’s not a Google Maps monopoly but an ecosystem…

If I'm being honest, the only thing stopping me from shopping at other sites is having to put my personal and payment details in yet another site for it to go stale, or fall out of my memory, or get leaked in the next big hack.

Some sites have "pay with Amazon" (more likely PayPal, but... ugh. I don't remember why, but I hate it), but I'd love to see some universal adoption of some sort of payment and shipping details lockbox. Like SSO where you can revoke access to subscribers or something.

An SSO-like payment system with tracking and revocation is a great idea and would be amazing for us consumers. I'm just not holding my breath waiting for the corpos to implement it.

While nowhere near perfect (far from it, really), as long as the sites you are shopping on are PCI-compliant (most should be), you don't have to worry too much about a compromised site leaking your payment details for use elsewhere.

Basically just use a password manager and don't worry about saving credit card (NOT debit card) details in the site as long as they aren't extra-sketchy.
- As a web dev myself, I know the sheer amount of money that would have to go into monkey patching together all these disparate protocols and ancient APIs, plus the regulatory requirements, and that's BEFORE worrying about consumer AND vendor adoption. The only reason to get into it is if the service is secondary to chasing a lucrative buyout before you get crushed by some multinational online retail cartel you never knew existed (but always suspected), or Google AEEs you.
  
  Fintech blows.
- That already exists with PayPal and Apple Pay for example. The remote site never sees your credit card, just an approval token. You won’t be able to get away from address though as they need to know how to get it to you.

Ebay and Aliexpress seem to work just fine. I've only once ever ordered something from Amazon.

I'm trying to use Ebay more often but the source is hard to verify.
- Does it matter really? If it is not what you ordered send it back
- Amazon sources are equally hard to verify. The only difference is Amazon has a little more customer satisfaction power (by returns to a main warehouse) than ebay (now warehouses but still favors the customer). There's continuously new ways to get counterfeit product sold on Amazon.

If you cannot afford to shop elsewhere, then I don't see how it's reasonable to fault you for that. But if you can justify spending a little less and want to avoid it, then I'm sure you know what I would suggest. Do or do not, a wise man once said.

Are you frustrated that you can't muster the willpower to avoid shopping there? The website was literally designed to get you addicted to it. The man himself has said as such. There are browser extensions that will block specific url families. I wouldn't be surprised if entire extensions were designed for that website specifically.

I just wish there was an aggregator that isn't Walmart or Amazon or Temu. I try really hard to spread my shopping around and actually buy local when I can. It just sucks Amazon is so easy.

What kind of stuff have you been buying that you couldn't find elsewhere (at a competitive price)?

I buy a moderate amount of my stuff online and was able to almost entirely avoid Amazon this year. The only exception was a phone display where Amazon had a LCD-variant for ~30€ while all others only had an OLED for ~90€.

I dont think its about availability, more about the convenience of having everything in one place and especially the rating system (which of course only works if you have a huge customer base and is also being exploited so not really a plus for Amazon anymore)

Google shopping or duckduckgo shopping can usually find it. Or go to amazon and then search the sellers name.

Not perfect but a lot of big box stores offer free shipping. I usually will check Walmart, Best Buy, Target B&H and Google shopping. I'm pretty sure they all offer free shipping after $35. Chewy for animal stuff is really good too. Also check the manufacturer, I recently bought a gift that way and it was cheaper and had more selection options than dumb Amazon.

Came to say the same. I'm not sure how much my location plays a role, but B&H is my go-to for many electronics, Best Buy is a backup, and Target is up there too. I can pre-order BB and Tgt as well, giving me a few stores to choose from locally. The physical stores need to compete with Amazon to survive, so they are

I personally use temu and I've had the same experience as amazon but for a far better price, my 60 dollar temu headphones had an almost studio quality microphone and metal frame

Also learn to solder and fix your own stuff to buy less, shave with a straight razor and razorblades and you'll save hundreds over the year in razors

They shipped malware in there mobile app

Hard pass for me
I'm honestly not sure why you're being down voted. At this point temu is basically Amazon with longer shipping times.

It sort of is the next logical progression.
- Because Temu is even worse for the environment and somehow has even worse labor practices than Amazon

I've been going to Walmart more because of all the Chinese sellers. I fine with it if it's not on Temu for cheaper and if they disclose it's going to take three weeks to ship. It pisses me off to no end when they indicate it's going to take 3 or 4 days to get to me and then I check the tracking a couple days later to see a Chinese mail tracking number.

So try Walmart, if you want stateside stuff then use the retailer filter and select "Walmart."

Another alternative, if it's likely made in China or cheap, then check Temu. I've found things all over Etsy which is just crap bought from Temu and posted on there for double the price. And I mean they get the package, repackage it, and send it to you. No alterations or anything.

You can also look at ordering directly from manufacturers. Sometimes you'll get deals.

Temu is such a sketchy company. Do not buy from them unless you like Chinese malware
- I would never buy anything electronic from them for that reason.

Amazon is convenient and two day shipping rules

Barely anything I order comes in 2 days anymore. It's almost always 3 to 5 days.
- I have a Amazon warehouse near me so that probably helps
Of course it is, but why does convenience have to be built on exploitation? I would gladly pay higher prices for an ethical alternative.
- Then by all means, do so. I'll keep doing as I do.

I'm generally fine with Amazon. The main things I'd like to see changed:

Their determined nagging to subscribe to Amazon Prime. I don't have a good fix there.
Perishable food. Walmart.com does a better job here IME, uses their existing infrastructure and delivery network to provide perishables in a tight time window.
Limited product classification for searches. For electronics, Newegg does a better job of having a database with many aspects of products being searchable. In general, specialty rather than general-purpose stores seem to do a better job on this.
Limited selection. Amazon is pretty darn good on this, but for some really esoteric stuff, Google Shopping can win, since it'll index the inventory of many retailers. If I can't find something on Amazon, that's my next stop. It can also search for numeric ranges ("3..25") as I recall, which can be useful for some items.

If you want an alternative for some reason, OP, you probably want to list what it is that you'd like done differently, as that kinda determines what alternatives make sense.