I use Amazon to find a product but will then look for another channel to make the purchase, such as the product’s own site. I try to buy from Amazon as little as possible, and if I can only buy a product from Amazon, I’ll ask the product seller to give me a way to buy direct.

I would never buy a food or similar product that I would eat or use on my body from them. They simply don’t care about their supply chain integrity (aside from this bone they’re finally throwing to sellers and customers).

I bought some expensive camera gear from Amazon and had a terrible experience. The delivery person obviously stole the gear and kept making fake "delivery attempted" notifications at exactly midnight while I was at home night after night. Amazon eventually refunded me, but they made me wait weeks to get my money back despite years of being a customer and spending many thousands with them and never requesting other refunds.

So now I don't buy expensive camera gear from Amazon anymore. But why do I still shop there?

This week, I ordered an obscure ESP32 system on a chip mounted on a 7" LCD screen for a custom project. I ordered it at 10pm and it was somehow delivered at 8:30am the next morning with "free" prime delivery. The price was cheap. My next best option would be an electronics specialist that would take a week to deliver it. Amazon just has a much better warehouse and delivery network for obscure parts. There's really no one else offering close to what they offer.

I tried making a serious effort of avoiding amazon lately. What I found was _generally_ prices are much higher everywhere else.

Charcoal pencils - 30% cheaper on Amazon compared to other sites. More than 2 times cheaper compared to local art stores and the local store only has one crappy brand in stock.

My watch - $40 plus shipping (2 weeks) directly from the manufacturer. Amazon has it at $28 and it'll get here tomorrow.

Pen nibs from Jetpen - $10 + $5.95 shipping. Once again >1week for delivery. $16 from amazon and it gets here tomorrow

I really feel like an idiot trying to boycott this company, but I'm still trying where I can.

I more or less stopped completely. I spent nearly $10,000 on Amazon in 2016 (Multiple computers, clothes, games, foodstuffs - Just everything); It was down to $2000 by 2018 after I stopped trusting it for anything but big-ticket items that were unlikely to be counterfeit. It picked up again in the pandemic, but after a series of bad purchases in 2023 I've spent less than $1000 in the last year, and over half of that is a CPU that I really feared buying because of fraud/counterfeit concerns, and immediately inspected and installed to assuage those fears.

Yeah, I don’t understand it either. When someone sells me a fake item, I stop giving them my money. It happened to me with Amazon almost a decade ago and I haven’t ordered from there since.

Stop rewarding bad behavior!

I once was the victim of an empty box scam when I purchased an expensive item off Amazon a few years ago (luckily I got a refund), and since then I've used Amazon much less, and only for inexpensive things. Maybe enough people have reduced their spending such that Amazon has been forced to take notice.

I largely stopped buying from Amazon after receiving three counterfeit or defective products in one month. The only reason I buy from them now is due to a particularly low sale price or things I can’t easily source elsewhere. Otherwise, if ai can buy local or buy elsewhere I do.

Amazon has some things other sources don't, or has them at prices that make it worth the risk.

But for lots of "normal" stuff I use Walmart/Target to source it if possible.