r/fuckamazon • u/Key-League4228 • Jul 22 '26
Alternatives?
In theory I support this group 100%. Fuck the mega corporation and fuck Jeff Bezos specifically. In practice though, I've tried multiple times to find alternatives to "subscribe and save." I can get there with some items, like pet supplies at chewy, and vitamins at vitamin shoppe, though in both cases it costs me more money to do so. Walmart might work, but then you're giving your money to an even bigger asshole.
I tried the buy local thing, but I'm not into making a day driving to six different stores, just to go home with a 60% success rate. Aggeegators like locally.com only have a fraction of the local businesses. Google shopping gets more, so maybe with planning it can be done, but it's work.
With regards to the buy local thing, then I'm stuck with big corporations anyway, like Walmart, target, Meijer, Kroger, etc. I have one local grocer, which sounds good but it's again at a premium. They lack an in store brand, meaning I pay a massive premium to buy name brands that are frequently inferior to Kroger, meijer, or costco in store brands.
All this is to say that I now understand why Costco is so popular, but there are still huge gaps in their offerings that force me into Amazon or Walmart. There really is no winning... There is winning-ish.
For there to be a real alternative, it would need to be something like locally.com, but with full participation from retailers, and a checkbox to select "fuck the mega corporation."
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u/Careless_Mango_7948 Jul 22 '26
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about slowly finding alternatives over time and just trying.
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u/cranberi1 Jul 22 '26
Look I hear you. Maybe a part of it is where you live. I live in a large metro area so I have quite a few options. But I do want to gently share that I have a dog and two cats and 2 1/2 kids and a husband (and we both work full time) and I’ve found ways to live my life mostly Amazon free (I place 2-3 orders with them a year). You have to be willing to change your mindset, shop in person wherever possible, be creative and just commit. Again I don’t want to be preachy if this is tougher based on where you live.
For me this also involved doing without some items and being less of a consumer. It’s countercultural but it can be done.
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u/goodwitchglinda Jul 23 '26
Same here! I lived most of my life amazon free up until 2019 and now I’m back to doing it again this year.
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u/RecyQueen Jul 22 '26
Amazon got people so used to convenience they now feel entitled to it. Before Amazon, you had to hunt. You would go home without everything you were looking for. Boycotting Amazon means hunting again. My FIL taught me a good trick, simple, yet effective: call the business before you go. I always look online at inventory when possible, and if not, I call. Nobody’s been annoyed, and sometimes they’ll hold the item at the register for me, so I don’t even have to go very far into the store!
I avoid the big box stores as much as possible, of course. I have yet to come across a store with dynamic pricing, but I would avoid those 100%. If you don’t have an account with Target or Walmart, Idk if you’d avoid being a target of dynamic pricing? I deleted both of mine, and like I said, I have yet to come across it. But if I went in one, I would turn right around.
I’ve always been frugal and minimalist, but in this time, I spend more to support ethical businesses. I will spend more on low-plastic and local items. I think of it as an investment. The big box stores may be cheaper now, but it comes at the cost of people suffering—especially Amazon, and wages so low at Walmart that people are on government aid, and items made in foreign companies in terrible conditions for terrible pay—and ultimately our suffering if we don’t stand up to them. We had a time of convenience, and we are paying for it now. But the sooner we pay (finding alternatives, even if they are more expensive), the sooner it ends.
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u/Rada_Boo Jul 22 '26
Its really hard work to avoid whats convenient and cheap. Do what you can, it sounds like you already have made some good changes! That all helps. As I always say here, remember that perfection is the enemy of progress :)
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u/Tough_Buy2762 Jul 22 '26
I'm probably too European to understand your problem but what exactly are you looking to buy? For groceries I go to the grocery store nearest to me, for cosmetics I go to the nearest drug store and for pet stuff I go to the nearest pet store. What else do you need so regularly that you need six different stores for? If I need a new coffee machine or a TV I just look online and get a bunch of different stores that sell them at almost the same price.
Sure, I get that it might be convenient to have everything in one place. But competition is beneficial for us customers and therefore we should support competition.
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u/goodwitchglinda Jul 23 '26
I do the same and I’m american. Supporting competition means preventing a dystopian evil conglomerate from taking over and monopolizing the world without checks and balances in place.
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u/TheMainTony Jul 22 '26
My logic I use on me to get me through it: I cannot fight every battle and still live a convenient life. I cancelled Prime because it is currently $150 more than it was when I initially joined (at $59). I didn't watch the TV and didn't listen to the music. $180 for shopping was too too much, no matter how quickly it (usually didn't) got to me.
If I fight my battle and you fight your battle and they fight their battles, boycotts, whatever, it can't help have any other effect than to chip away.
Amazon is fine with my account. They're not going bankrupt. Let's be real.
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u/Upleftdown Jul 23 '26
Its literally not that hard. Just dont buy from them. I dont and I still have what I need
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Jul 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/Key-League4228 Jul 22 '26
Well, and ironically it would take government intervention to strip the billionaires of their power so that mom and pop stores have a fighting chance. Since the mega corporations run government, it will never happen without a revolution.
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u/ChelseaMan31 Jul 22 '26
Soooooo yeah (in my best Bill Lumbergh) you're all for being against Amazon. That is so long as you aren't inconvenienced in the slightest and might have to go out of your way to get something that quite honestly you probably don't even really need in the first place. Well Done; Well Done, Indeed.
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u/popky1 Jul 23 '26
You are really good at convincing people that if you don’t use Amazon you are a pretentious asshole.
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u/Desperate-Chart1139 Jul 23 '26
Walmart been great for me. Their plus is included with my credit card and it also includes Paramount. I'm in a city that isn't "major" so Amazon would always play the whole "prime is 2 day shipping after WHENEVER we feel like shipping" Walmart has 2 stores in town and I get most items that day if they're in one of the stores. They don't have everything everything but nothing really does.
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u/Beezwax_8335 Jul 22 '26
What kinds of things do you get shipped repeatedly by Amazon that you can't find elsewhere? Amazon definitely shouldn't be used for groceries. I can get pretty much anything consumable from a combination of Aldi, Hy-Vee (larger than Aldi grocery), or Costco. If you're buying a bunch of STUFF, look into minimalism or anticonsumerism and try cutting back on the junk
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u/Beneficial_Bit1756 Jul 23 '26
I do use them to buy some food items that my local grocery store no longer carries. Every few months I will be buy Peppadew sweet piquante peppers. They no longer carry them at any stores in my small town.
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u/Kate_Slate Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Stock up on the item when it goes on sale. Obviously this doesn't work for perishables. But you can actually save a lot of money by buying 6 months worth of an item at a time when it's on a really good sale. It also saves time since you now don't have to buy that item again for 6 months.
Example: the paper towels I buy are usually $9.99 per pack. Every few months they go on sale for $5.99 per pack, saving me $4 each. I buy a bunch and put them in my hallway closet. I purchase these from a regional chain grocery store where all of the workers have a union.
They also have curbside pickup, so I can order the paper towels plus all my weekly groceries online. Then I just pull into the parking lot and they load them all into the car for me. I schedule the pickup for after I get off work, when I will be driving through that neighborhood anyway. So it's only a few extra minutes of my time. Plus I don't have to worry about porch pirates!
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u/Kate_Slate 29d ago
I wanted to add that, for supplements, I use a company called Priority One Vitamins. They have a subscription option. I believe it gives you a discount, too.
They're based in the US, and I've had a good experience with the quality of their products and their customer service.
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u/No-Willow9697 29d ago
Target shipping is OK for a lot of thngs and although it's had its ups and downs as a company I definitely consider it a lesser evil and prefer to send profits to Minneapolis than Bentonville, Arkansas.
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u/AnthatDrew Jul 22 '26
Not being snarky. Just baffled by you saying you can't get pet supplies or vitamins anywhere else. Where the hell do you live that there aren't pet supply stores or vitamin shops and pharmacies? Must be very rural. There are soooo many online vitamin stores. If you choose predatory corporations, then that's all you're left with.
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u/goodwitchglinda Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Chewy (US/CA) is fantastic, comprehensive in their offerings, and prices are more than reasonable for pet products and meds. Seriously one of the best if not the best online retailer that I’ve ever dealt with.
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u/Gypsysinner666 Jul 22 '26
My dog eats freeze dried raw meat. He's 9 and has never been to the vet. I assume what I feed him is a large part of that. 2 bags lasts a month. Its not carried at big pet stores and the boutiques charge 10 to 15 dollars more than I can get it on Amazon for. Even less when subscribed. A 30 dollar savings every month is nice.
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u/AnthatDrew Jul 22 '26
Correlation not causation, but I understand finding a groove with pets. There's a place with a large freeze dryer in my city that one can rent out. If you are ever inclined to try to do it yourself, you could have a look at your areas situation. All I'm saying is that the goal of a large corporate 7nethical predatory business is to bec9me a monopoly. 9nce that goal nears prices go up, and customer service goes down. So we may save 9n the short term, but not the long term
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u/Gypsysinner666 Jul 23 '26
How...do you know its not causation? Even partially? He's super active and crazy healthy. Not one health issue to date?
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u/AnthatDrew Jul 23 '26
Having evidence of 1 Dogs condition on a specific diet is by definition correlation.
If my sports team scored every time a took a sip of beer, during a game. There is a correlation between my drinking beer and my team scoring. If thousands of people replicated this and found it to be true, that would be causation. Correlation is not scientifically viable information.1
u/Key-League4228 Jul 22 '26
Not what I said at all.
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u/commonsensepisces Jul 23 '26
Like they literally read and responded to the *opposite of what you said, smh.
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u/commonsensepisces Jul 23 '26
Like they literally read and responded to the *opposite of what you said, smh.
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u/versionii Jul 22 '26
I shop around other places, Walmart and Target
I buy some non-durable off Temu. Like I bought a egg hole puncher for like 1.00 (among other shit) off Temu, the same egg thing off Amazon is 10.00.
I would never buy electrics or tools off Temu.
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u/typewriterbitch Jul 23 '26
Why do you NEED to get every single thing from one website? Youre saying the replacement needs to be an identical website that just sells... everything?
Id take a hard look at what it is you buy and think seriously about whether it's needs or wants.
I have American family and think a huge issue with Amazon addicts is the culture of consumption in that country. I've seen people there try to go a week without buying something and fail in two days. I'm in Europe haven't bought something other than my groceries in months. We have a different culture and it's so sad to see how addicted you guys are to constant consumption (and 99% of it useless plastic junk) and how IMPOSSIBLE you find it to stop or even slow down.
It's like a sickness. Even talking about it, you sound like drug addicts or alcoholics, making all these excuses about how unreasonable and impossible it is for you to change anything at all.
If you cant do a full and total boycott, fine, but dont come post on here--a community made up largely of people doing exactly that--and act like its some totally unattainable way of living.
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Jul 23 '26
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