How not to give J3ff B3zos money: a repository of alternatives

Follow-up to my Book Outlet post near the top of the thread: especially good if you have to buy books for a kid, either your own or a friend/relative's. (Also for charity donations around Christmas.) Putting together an order of a dozen books for ~$50, no shipping, is very easy.

Echoing the support for hive.co.uk

I'm not absolutely sure how useful the nominating your local bookshop thing is (based on my nearest bookshop deciding not to be involved) but perhaps someone can give a sense of this??

More often than not as good, price-wise, as Amazon. If anyone has a Blue Light card this generally gives another ten per cent off.

Honestly don't know, will ask my local bookshop about this.

I mean, obviously its better than someone buying from Amazon.

Amazon used to be cheaper, but if I buy a new hardcover now, pretty sure my local bookstore matches their price exactly--i.e., both just go with the suggested retail price.

Good to see hive co uk discussion. Been using them for a few years, and do not fuck with Amazon. Otherwise 2nd hand bookshops are still a thing in London and we have an ok Oxfam. LRB bookshop is a great physical bookshop.

Other than that I will buy from the publisher direct too.

Have thought of sending my olde stuff to Amazon, letting them deal w storage, shipping etc. when it sells---other places?

In US.

I would not recommend farming out to Amazon FBS and letting it ride. Their storage prices went from "ooof" to "fuck off" and their charges shot way up during the pandemic. The only way it appears to be feasible to me is buying containers of the cheapest junk you can find on Alibaba to mark up with your own branding.

and even then I'd guess more people lose money with their Amazon FBS home goods and sock stores than make money

that sound like a str8 up con.

I was thinking old books, records, CDs---but haven't looked at storage prices lately---no other better place for this in US?

I used to know people who worked for an EBay consignment shop but I'm not sure those really exist anymore since EBay largely went the same direction of drop-shipping junk.

isn't there some relatively local shop you can sell to?

...or retro day markets/record shows?

as to my friends in the booktrade, yea, basically a percentage of the fees they pay to Abe— i think it is somewhere around 5-10%— goes to Amazon, and their wares get advertised in the “other new and used options” on Amazon. according to my best friend, who makes his living as a used book and record dealer, these amazon click throughs account for a tiny percentage of sales.

honestly i think that not buying anything directly from Amazon fulfillment services is quite easy— it’s the Abe stuff that occasionally gives me pause but honestly, the used book market can be insane and sometimes there aren’t alternatives that are economical.

If you buy a record from an independent place and it has a quality control problem, don’t return it to the shop. Buy it from Amazon, switch out the scratched record and return the bad one to Amazon, get your refund.

I think bookshop.org is a much better deal for the stores that sign up to it than hive is

isn't there some relatively local shop you can sell to?

― sleeve, Sunday, November 10, 2024 8:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

...or retro day markets/record shows?

― Charlie Hair (C. Grisso/McCain)

I recently finished selling 4K records that belonged to a deceased friend, it took a few years but I did the following steps:

1. gave away stuff (limit 50 per person) to friends, family, active local DJs (may not apply in yr case)
2. called shops (or went in and talked to them), had dealers come look through the collection and take what they wanted for a flat rate, I think I started at $10 per and then $5, then $3, then $1
(note: you may want to set aside some high grade stuff that's worth more in a separate bin, but once u get under say $15 Discogs median I'd go flat rate)
3. sold a bunch of the rest at a yard sale, then gave away the remainder to a local thrift, prob down to around 500-600 by then

I made one FB public event for the last sale round, but that was it

Thanks sleeve, I've done all that to some extent, would rather have somebody else sell & ship--but--

If you buy a record from an independent place and it has a quality control problem, don’t return it to the shop. Buy it from Amazon, switch out the scratched record and return the bad one to Amazon, get your refund.

― Cow_Art, Monday, November 11, 2024 11:08 AM

^^^ this guy gets it (as long as yr ordering from beezo and not an individual/shop using beezo's platform)

Unsolicited testimonial... if you need cheap hard drives, check out serverpartdeals.com. Their name sounds like sponsoredSEObait, but I've been buying from them for a year and they beat AMZ, NewEgg, etc.

One major thing that keeps me buying many items on Amazon is that they (and few others) offer a locker service - rather than having items shipped to your home address, you can send them to one of the many lockers they have in nearby grocery stores, convenience stores, and malls, and a code sent to my phone that lets me open it. This is a huge advantage for those of us that don't have a good alternative place to send to, and who live somewhere where a box on the porch will likely be stolen if left there for a long time (as has happened to me twice). I'll still send small/cheap items to my doorstep for convenience, but there's no way I'm having a new laptop dropped on my porch. There seem to be few alternatives. Home Depot and Lowes have lockers in front of their stores - a 10 to 15 minute drive for me - and several retailers like Target, Walmart, and Apple let you ship items to their store customer service desks, but again that involves a fairly long drive and arriving during store hours.

The major shipping services - USPS, UPS, and FedEx if you're in the US - allow you to ship items to their locations, but I often don't know which shipper an online merchant will use when I buy something online, and again their brick & mortar locations are far away (USPS excluded) and have short hours. Many times I'm home all but one day that week and send orders arriving on those days to my home even if they're pricey items, as Amazon is pretty good with arrival dates, often giving prospective arrival dates before you order. Few other online merchants give you the exact delivery day before you place the order.

Amazon returns are also easier than any of the alternatives. They'll often even repack everything for you.
A huge lockable dropbox built into the porch or near the front door of a house for delivered packages is becoming more popular - how do those proof-of-delivery photos work when your package is hidden in a metal box?

How does everyone else handle this?

I'm buying more stuff in person although I realize that's not a convenient option for some folks.

This weekend I wanted to buy some ramekins. I found a "family-owned" housewares store on duckduckgo and went there in person. It was a good experience.

Bookshop now sells ebooks! I need to check on removing their drm and loading to a Kindle vs. reading in their app on a phone but great to have an option that supports a local bookstore.

https://bookshop.org/

A minor thing, but one thing I've found surprisingly difficult to avoid buying on Amazon is major label released, non Top 40 records (vinyl and CD). Like stuff that's on big labels with no Bandcamp presence and rarely with artists specific webstores, but stuff that's not quite popular enough for brick and mortar stores to definitely stock because everyone will be looking for it.

I feel you there. no one stocks that stuff in brick and mortars. I have been using dearbornmusic.net or amoeba.com. both have free shipping in the USA (after a certain minimum).

Yeah, I sometimes also order from Music Millennium in Portland. Not free shipping, but generally a great selection and quick turnaround!

Amazon returns are also easier than any of the alternatives.

This is my #1 reason to keep using Amazon.

A thing I have definitely never done is if I receive a defective product from a local retailer, to order another one from Amazon and then return the defective one to them.

I made a New Year’s resolution to stop buying from Amazon. Finding alternatives has been successful: bookshop.org for books, CDs through Discogs.

ebay for everything else. feels good man.

My Kindle is what keeps me tied to Amazon for the moment. I read an interesting book review and then with the click of a button, there it is on my Kindle. Yes I know I could source the book elsewhere and then use some software on my laptop to export it to the Kindle, but that takes away the ease-of-use aspect that I like about the Kindle. Is there any way to replicate that experience without Amazon? Because I'm feeling increasingly dirty having anything to do with it.

yeah, buy a kobo

amazon purchases here are usually my family getting me to order stuff for them (last christmas was replacement kitchen tap tops, the one before that inter dental brushes...)

but i do need 2 more disks for my nas and i don't know, or perhaps don't trust, anywhere else for like £200 worth of hdd.

(then there's work, which is all aws-based)

(disks available many places according to seagate. they are £15 more expensive everywhere else though, and i need 2)

my boss was saying that having prescriptions shipped to his porch, with a text msg saying they're on the way, is the main reason he won't drop amazon.. too many long waits to pick thing up at Walgreens, and Walgreens seem to be closing left & right around here anyway

Surprised at this stat:

As of last spring, 75% of American consumers had Amazon Prime memberships, a total of 180m Prime accounts, according to Bloomberg.

yeah, I saw that.. had no idea it was that high

my boss was saying that having prescriptions shipped to his porch, with a text msg saying they're on the way, is the main reason he won't drop amazon.. too many long waits to pick thing up at Walgreens, and Walgreens seem to be closing left & right around here anyway

yeah, I do the benefits bill for my work, and it's crazy to me how many people stick with Blue Cross when we offer Kaiser, especially in NorCal where they have a large footprint

Kaiser doesn’t operate in a lot of places

“you should switch to this thing we have”

:person can’t switch to thing because it doesn’t exist where they live:

:A story of Californians and their obliviousness:

amazon offered free 6 month subs to students last year. they didn't require any evidence of customers being students.

:A story of Californians and their obliviousness:

I don't think sarahell is so oblivious... we both live in the same northern california area, that's likely where her recommendation came from

There are ~130 million households in the US, I imagine that number above includes a lot of 3-4 account households and college kids signing up for free.

food should be free, shoplifting food is always good

(For my part, I avoid Whole Foods for the same reason I don't think Neiman Marcus when I need underwear--even if they do have what I need I trust I can find something suitable at a better price.)

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu),

their selection of Stilton cheeses tho

worth shoplifting imo

What's a good alternative to Audible? I actually had no idea they were owned by Amazon until I was about to sign up.

kobo do audiobooks.

We got Prime cancelled with much less stress than anticipated. Our main household credit card paid rewards in Amazon credit, so I got a different card (Cap 1 Savor, cashback optimized for groceries and restaurants) and got all recurring charges changed over. WaPo is going to be tougher.

nice work, comrade

Continuing effort to cut back the Subscribe&Save - located compostable K-Cups at Costco yesterday. Mr. Jaq generally does the Costco runs but doesn't drink coffee - he wrecked his car last week so we did this biweekly run together.

No way is he driving my car and hooray added benefit of dropping more subscriptions.

My younger brother has worked at Amazon for over a decade, and I could mentally justify buying from Bezos since it paid his salary etc. But he's preparing to bail due to their stupid RTO (which in his case means he would have to move to a "hub city").

attempting to de-google, which is going to be hard given a pixel phone.

Joplin was mentioned as an alternative to Keep notes, but it is raw. i think it is more focused on the syncing functionality and the way it looks is secondary - titles only in the main screen, no custom per-note colours. maybe it's better on a tablet with more real-estate where you can see the note list and the active note at the same time.

windows 11 is going to be a big thing, i think. current laptop, which is perfectly fine despite being from 2017, probably won't update. i am 99% linux already, but the adobe digital thing for ebooks is the one thing i use on a monthly basis. i should look into using Wine for this

(there was a library that basically used curl to do the same thing, but i couldn't get it to work, although this write-up looks like it has the details - https://pig-monkey.com/2024/07/libgourou/ )

(success! just downloaded and converted a recent kobo purchase and can read it in calibre)

Leave the Kindle in airplane mode and no worries about any disappearing books. Transfer ebook files from a computer over the USB.

If you do this, be sure to keep backups of not just any non-Amazon-purchased books but more importantly, the associated notes file (*.sdr) for each book. I'd kept my paperwhite in airplane mode for a couple of months and when I shut it off to download an Amazon book, it deleted everything. Months of notes all gone. Apparently this is a recognized problem that Amazon has never addressed. I've managed to get pirated local versions of most of my Amazon purchases but I'm still missing a handful. Someday...

almost like amazon doesn't want it to work with non-amazon files

My hatred of Amazon is an ever-deepening well