this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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It used to be that if you searched for a particular brand or product on Amazon, that's what would come up. Now you get sponsored links followed by pages of brands with names like "QERNTOO". Amazon essentially transferred the responsibility for vetting brands to the US patent and trade office. The resellers, drop shippers, and scammers create dumb unique brand names to get the paperwork through the USPTO quickly whenever they have a brand fall apart or get caught scamming.
You can get stuff quickly through Amazon, but it really isn't worth it anymore. Often you can get products right from the website of actual brands for the same price. You might not get 2 day shipping, but that's almost never necessary. If you live somewhere where the 2 day shipping actually gets to you in 2 days, you live close enough to a brick and mortar store where you can get whatever you need even faster.
I live in a major west coast city and "next" or "second day" shipping often takes 3 or 4 and Amazon just effectively says "oh well". It:s become kind pf a scam.
I'm always looking for ways to avoid Amazon, and if I had a car, this might be true, but because I live in the downtown core where parking is extremely expensive and transit covers most of my needs, I don't have a car, although a significant portion of the retail stores near me have shut down in the past few years. So, if I want to buy things from a brick and mortar store that's not a grocery store or random boutique, I have to spend 45+ minutes each way on a bus to the stores in the suburbs. And since I'm on public transit, picking up bulky items, heavy items, or a large quantity of items is not very practical. A large selection of Amazon's items are available to me via same day or next day shipping (and they show up on time ~97% of the time), so they actually do get to me faster than figuring out how to get the same items from a brick and mortar store. I have most definitely wasted 2 days running around to various stores only to return empty handed, and eventually order it from Amazon anyway.
In my opinion, the best option is ordering online from whatever business makes the thing. If it takes a few days longer than Amazon, that's fine by me. Often, support for good products is easier to get if you've ordered right from the source, too. My second choice is ordering online from a non-amazon store. E.g., for electronics, new egg or best buy, for tools, home depot, for groceries, whatever your local chain is, etc. Not that any of those businesses are going to be completely better than Amazon, but that way you are at least avoiding the monopoly. Lots of those businesses have free shipping, too, anyway.
Only if you actually need something right away, would I advocate going to the brick and mortar location. I almost never need anything right away, though. Only real exception is groceries; I've never been a huge fan of grocery delivery (for me).
That's not really true if you need a specific thing, or choice of thing, and not just a generic version of thing. And ...
... often you spend a hours finding an item somewhere else and when you go to checkout, they redirect you to their Amazon store.
I fully support efforts to boycott Amazon. But, sad to say, sometimes it's not really feasible.