sonia | Link: Alternatives to Amazon Prime

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Giving Up Amazon. I'm a little dubious about some of the links in the post, and about the organization posting this, but I thought it might be useful for folks. The organization is called Threshold and says that when 3.5% of the population gets involved in a movement, the movement succeeds. No names or adddresses in the website that I saw, though.

For myself, I never joined Prime because I didn't want the extra incentive to buy more at Amazon. I do occasionally buy things through Amazon, but I try to find them locally first, and I remind myself to look at who benefits if something is more expensive.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rosefox

I almost never buy from Amazon, and whenever I make an exception I feel icky.

Their list of alternatives isn't bad, though it really needs some caveats. eBay, like Amazon and Rakuten and so on, is a front end for merchants ranging from Sally up the street to major companies whose warehouse operations and union-busting are no better than Amazon's. When we were looking for an alternative to buying a desk from Wayfair, I was excited to find the same desk on eBay—until I realized it was Wayfair's eBay shop. So purchase with care there.

I'm astonished not to see AbeBooks on their books list. It's my go-to for used books.

From:

sonia

Thanks for the info!

From:

castiron

AbeBooks has been owned by Amazon for over ten years, so no surprise that it isn't on the list.

From:

sonia

Good to know!

From:

rosefox

...augh, really? That bites. I even looked all over their website for a mention of being owned by Amazon and didn't find it. Looks like it's in very tiny print on the About Us page.

Back to the old drawing board. *sigh*

From:

castiron

If you're in the United States, I've had good luck with Better World Books for used books. (They might work well outside the US too, but I don't know what their shipping is like.) Reasonable prices; books so far have been as described; frequent sales; option to purchase carbon offsets.

From:

elainegrey

Skimming their site

I think there are a number of eBay new-thing vendors who use Amazon as their fulfillment system. I am happy to see https://www.betterworldbooks.com/ -- i didn't know they had a website. I end up getting used books from them via Amazon. I'll try to remember to use them first (and Powells).

thanks for sharing!