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Comment by jakobegger | Hacker News Reader

There are alternatives to Amazon!

For general household stuff, my go to store is manufactum.com

They only offer very few things, but the things they have are very high quality. If you buy something from Manufactum, you know it'll last for the rest of your life.

The stuff there is of course outrageously expensive compared to the plastic crap from Amazon, but for me that means I really think about the purchase. Do we really need two of those metal baskets for the shower that hold your shampoo bottles? Not if it costs 100€.

For tools, there's dictum.com, which follows a similar philosophy. They don't offer a million choices; they make a very deliberate choice which products they sell, so you don't have to make the choice. You can rely that something you order from them is a good choice.

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My problem with sites like manufactum is that I have the feeling that I get exactly the same stuff as I would get from somewhere else but with an insane price markup. I can either buy a random organic cotton shirt for thirty Euros, or I can buy an organic cotton shirt from manufactum and pay four times as much. What's the extra value I get?

At the very least, a price point that doesn’t externalize the real environmental cost of the item, perhaps?

Unless you're a "brain-washed hippy environmental activist", the markup definitely feels like a ripoff - which is the fundamental problem with any ethical shopping website. I'd gladly pay Amazon price + 5 dollars,any more and my ethics bow down to my trained budgeting

Which probably accounts for a lot of people's behaviours, but the real cost of most products is going to be more like 100-500% markup, not a flat $5, especially once you get into cheap flights or items that have been shipped large distances.

I'm not someone who believes that changes in individual consumer behaviour is going to keep up under 5 degrees of global warming, but if we don't start getting used to some of this, then there will never be the political will to enact the policies that will head off the worst of climate change.

I'd be ok with all stores everywhere being hit with a plastic tariff that meant that a plastic bucket cost 25 euro. I'm not ok with spending 25 euro on a bucket[0] "just because" - it just feels like I'm stuffing someone's pocket at that point.

[0]https://www.manufactum.com/swiss-plastic-bin-p1448058/?a=772...

You are paying for someone in Switzerland to make a high quality bucket. Yes, that person earns a lot more than the average chinese factory worker. But in exchange you get a better bucket. I've had a lot of cheap plastic buckets break, so I kinda understand why someone would want to get a better plastic bucket.

I agree with incorporating negative externalities into the cost of a product, but if the money isn't actually going toward paying for those externalities then it's just profit for the owner.

It's not like the extra Euros are used for sucking carbon out of the atmosphere or cleaning up the oceans. They'll most likely end up in Manufactum's pocket.

The stuff from Manufactum is not comparable to cheap stuff from somewhere else. It's a lot better quality. It's not just "organic cotton"; there's a lot more that differentiates products from Manufactum than just the type of cotton it is made from.

You can see from the extremely elaborate description that they write about every manufacturer (it's a German store, so the English texts aren't as detailed) that they don't just resell random stuff from far away factories. They put a lot of thought into the products they offer.

Usually Manufactum isn't the cheapest option, but their markup is not as bad as you think. If you can find the item at other stores, it'll cost about the same (+/- 10%). For example, this Herder knife costs 94€ plus shipping at Manufactum [1] and 109€ with free shipping at Amazon [2].

[1]: https://www.manufactum.at/herder-kuechenmesser-kesselscher-w...

[2]: https://www.amazon.de/Windmühle-Messer-Windmühlenmesser-Univ...

I share GP's worry. Long descriptions are only proof they spend more on content. Given the sleaziness of on-line retailers in general, how can I tell this is a genuine signal and not faked one?

You'll have to take my word!

Manufactum is not a random online retailer. They have been around for some time, and have a certain reputation around here. They have been selling things from a paper catalog before the internet got popular. They actually still have paper catalogs, and reading them is a wonderful pastime. (I don't really use the website much, unless I am looking for something specific)

But even if you don't trust me, at least they have very detailed descriptions and high resolution photographs of the products on their site.

And if you order something, and you end up not liking it, you can always return it (eg. for a leather bag it's hard to judge from a photograph if you like it or not).

Fair, your word is enough for me to go and look at them closer.

My problem is that there's just so many fly-by-night stores selling the same chinesium with varying degree of markup - from "we just import this stuff" to "we put nice photos and descriptions, and pretend we're a premium brand" - that I just gave up and don't try to discover new stores myself. I only check them out based on word of mouth now. Beyond that, I either buy a particular item of known quality, preferably from manufacturer or a bigger chain (so I have legal recourse if they screw me over), or accept that what I'm going to get is going to be garbage.

I came here to recommend Manufactum too. Often, I've noted they offer the same products I have arrived to after extensive research elsewhere. E.g. SNS Herning jumpers.

What is more, after talking to SNS Herning owner, I discovered Manufactum sells a unique version of their jumpers with organic wool. Because they explicitly requested this.

On the other hand, I have also noted a few, but not all, items have big markups vs buying directly from the producer.

Aside, what drives me totally insane about current online and offline shopping is complete dishonesty about refurbished items. Many many sellers and Amazon warehouses have absolutely no ethics and they repackage and reseal used and returned items to sell them as new. It sucks big time.

The scam is so widespread that, for example, Leopold mechanical keyboards are sent to EU and US retailers without any seals. So that returned items never have damaged boxes. Whereas if you buy them straight from the manufacturer, you get some nice tamper proof seals.

Elaborate writing in a catalog to signal value is not new. In fact, it’s featured in Seinfeld: https://www.jpeterman.com/category/104235/owners-manual-no-1...

I think what grandparent meant was the "markup" (wrong word) between different products: random knife vs herder. Manufactum does not have an insane markup on the identical product, they just exclusively stock high(er)-end products.

Hilariously, the catalogue is a problem even within Amazon. Moving from Austria to the UK, I noticed that amazon.co.uk isn't showing me the same products as amazon.de. Looking for vacuums the latter (in the top 10) shows me Miele, Siemens and Philips (all over EUR 100). amazon.co.uk shows me random brands I have never heard of for < 50 quid, despite me never having bought that type of product (within a category).

I can't believe how fast that website is. I actually wrote to their contact address to ask how the heck they managed that.

Oh thanks for those, the problem with a lot of the online retailers I frequent is that there's just too much stuff on there, and it's really hard to discern quality from churn; filtering by price is useless because retailers will just play with prices, filtering by reviews is also useless because people are just as likely to give a cheap product 5 stars than their expensive counterpart. It's also hard to just discover quality products you never thought about getting in the first place (like a good pen + case as I've seen on there).

and don't forget ebay....which probably beats most everyone's prices by far. If you don't mind the extra few days waiting for shipping then that is by far your best bet. Also if you aren't afraid of buying second hand then going to your local thrift shop will give you by far the biggest bang for your buck, especially for clothing.

Ha! I actually went to eBay to purchase an ergo keyboard very recently. The description said new, dented box. The photos still had the manufacturer stickers on it. They literally slapped a label on the keyboard box and shipped it to me. If it wasn't dented before it definitely would have been now. What ended up coming was a used keyboard with a key missing.

I messaged the seller about it and they completely ignored me. The seller even went ahead and opened a claim on me. They would accept the item back, but I would eat the shipping costs. The item was $17 with $20 shipping; so that would mean I lose $20 returning the item.

The case ended up being closed on me since I didn't ship it back within the stated timeframe. During that time I was trying to contact the seller before I lost both my item and money.

I can probably escalate this some more, but the $20 isn't worth my time to contact eBay and deal with this seller. The seller has 8 negative feedback within the last month from doing the same thing to other buyers.

This reminded me why I pay a little more and shop on Amazon instead.

This. The count of miserable experiences I've had on eBay more than outweighs the few times I feel I've gotten a fair deal, or felt like I had a good experience with a buyer. eBay has high hopes to be the center of the future of commerce, but they need to work harder to protect users from bad sellers, and sellers from bad users, without making the experience (more) miserable for all.

When caveat emptor is the only rule in a bazaar or shop, I and many others take our money elsewhere. Some love to bargain and to take their lumps gracefully, but my time (and money) is better spent elsewhere.

(Well, until I again stumble on that one of a kind thing that I had when I was a kid and never thought I'd see again...)

US users might find Lehman's to be a helpful/similar resource. Their product selection skews towards old-timey/simpler life/non-electric stuff. They are located in a part of Ohio that has a large Amish population, which does explain that a bit.

Lehman's is great — but there's a visible quality line between the items they sell to Amish people who use it every day, and the other stuff they stock for dabblers. The gadgetier the item is, the less good the quality is likely to be.

Brits can look at https://www.objectsofuse.com/ (there's an actual store in Oxford).

Another one for people in the UK: https://www.labourandwait.co.uk

Apparently they also now have shops in New York and Tokyo.

To be clear, though, the type of things Labour and Wait sells are selected based on criteria that have more to do with fashion than practicality or ecological sustainability. It is totally a hipster fetishization of a certain idealized time in the past.

Personally, I like that style a lot, but what they offer only covers a limited range of household needs.

https://www.independent.co.uk/property/interiors/back-to-bas...

Otherwild in Los Angeles has recently opened a department that sells zero-waste products. That seems to have a bit more of an environmental agenda, but it's still within this kind of fashion frame: https://otherwild.com/pages/about-otherwild-general

> If you buy something from Manufactum, you know it'll last for the rest of your life.

That sounds like the opposite of how I want to shop. I don't want to have to think really hard about which trivial household item I want to spend the rest of my life with. I'd rather pick a random cheap one and then not feel too bad about replacing it, if necessary.

Things that last a lifetime can often be resold.

I _very_ much do not want to concern myself with pointless interaction that comes with personally selling used stuff. I never buy used things and I never sell them.

You leave a lot of value on the table then, or in the trash.

Oh, so it's people like you I have to thank for not being able to buy quality items anymore. I thought it was a trend driven by companies, but it turns out the population of people who prefer disposable, short-lived items is real after all :/.

My guess is that it is driven by nobody in particular; it's just a natural consequence of how things are working these days.

Consumers shopping at big box stores happens for a reason; it saves them time and, at least in the short run, it saves them money. Big box stores offering excessive variety happens for a reason; they're trying to be all things to all people, and ultimately, having more different things on their shelves is an important part of their image as a one-stop-shop, and therefore a big part of how they compete for customers. Customers tending to just by the cheapest thing also happens for a reason. Having ended up in a store with excessive variety, and with no shopkeepers who know the product well enough to make any useful recommendations, just about the only concrete things they can reliably compare by are price and feature list. Manufacturers making cheap gizmos happens for a reason. They know that this is what consumers ultimately end up doing, so they realize that their job is to cram as many bullet points onto the back of the box as possible at as low a price as possible. They also know that consumers know that they do this, which is why they subvert what few heuristics consumers have left for trying to discern quality by doing things like sticking metal weights into the product for no other reason than to make it feel heavier.

etc. etc. etc. If there was ever a backstop to limit these forces, it was the specialty shop with the knowledgeable proprietor who had years or decades' worth of experience with every single product or brand on the shelves, and heard back from their customers when things turned out to be cheap crap. But nobody's shopping there anymore, because just picking something up while you're already at Shopko will shave your time spent running errands by 45 minutes, and nobody's shopping at their website, either, because paying 8 moneys to ship something that only costs 20 moneys doesn't really make any sense.

You're completely missing the point.

The hardware shop of old - most now long gone in the destruction of so many brick and mortar shops - generally sold things that would last years or a lifetime. No thinking was required. You could pretty much shop with brain off, and eyes closed and get decent stuff.

For each of those items, there's probably now 300 replacements on Amazon, and maybe one meets the old quality and life. Many of those aren't even cheaper. Sometimes the one that worked, the original from which all those cheap copies stole, is gone, killed by avalanches of shite. Now there's none at all that work as well as the one that spawned the shite. Thank you Amazon and eBay.

To buy a knife that retains an edge for longer than 20 seconds, or even stainless steel that remains properly stainless in typical kitchen use, or container that handles washing, freezing and maybe a few cycles through the dishwasher requires effort. Effort picking apart hundreds of eBay and Amazon listings selling almost nothing but awful shite. Effort to spend even £2, or you'll inevitably get shite. Effort to find and pay extra for some artisan variant that'll cost a bomb, and might - only might be adequate. Shite has become the normal expected state of things.

I would far rather not buy 20 shite things that I don't feel bad about replacing, in the search for just fucking one that works. Yet very often that's the only option left. Shite in a sea of shite.

And you don't feel any qualms when your random cheap stuff breaks (or simply doesn't do the job very well) and ends up in landfill?

Sorry to sound critical, but you (and millions like you) are a problem.

Sorry, but I've moved at least 6 times since my kids started school. I rent and rents go up or I need to resize my home.

All of these moves have been within the same elementary school district, but it's really turned me off lasts forever stuff.

If it doesn't break, it gets lost in storage, or left behind on accident.

edit: I'd love to buy a house, but prices...

When I was in maybe third grade (around 2001-2002), I managed to convince my parents to get me and my brother each a CHF 55 fixed blade knife from Manufactum. Sadly they don’t sell that particular model anymore.

Made in Finnland especially for kids, full tang, thick carbon steel bladestock (you definitely wont snap it), and a robust (kiddiesize) grip lined with red-dyed donkey intestines. Came with a leather sheath.

We (ab)used them extensively and all out friends at summer camp, who “only” had Swiss Army Knives were very impressed. I even lost mine in our garden for a few years, but when I found it two years ago I polished the blade, sharpened it up and it was back in action like new. I then gave it to my smallest brother (11 y/o rn) who enjoys it very much.

If he doesn’t lose it, I am confident his children will also get to play with it.

Finding a deal like that on Amazon will be significantly more challenging. We just flipped through the catalogue and the only knife they recommended for our use case has worked flawlessly.

EDIT: It’s not for sale anymore, but here’s a picture, all though mine doesn’t have an engraved blade. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ae/48/d8/ae48d8a31c3963e3993b...

What the actual fuck, that site hijacks middle clicks as left clicks. Who decided that was OK?

> There are alternatives to Amazon!

That just means there's even more choice!

https://xkcd.com/927/

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