a lot of amazon sellers have listings up on ebay for literally the same prices. when you order it they just send it to you with a gift receipt and amazon does the fulfillment. i assume amazon would also handle refund/replacement with the ebay seller as a middleman. seems sketchy but i reckon it’s actually pretty beneficial to the buyer.
i haven’t used amazon since i tried to cancel prime and was strung along long enough for the site to claim i owed another $100 for a payment cycle that had JUST STARTED. luckily i used a virtual card for amazon, so i was able to just close it and refuse further payments. after that the option to cancel my membership went away entirely until i paid them the “outstanding payment” of $100.
now whenever i log in i IMMEDIATELY start getting notifications from privacy that they’re trying to charge $100 on a defunct card. they’ll do this once a day for a week or so, and then just once a week for another couple months.
the site is basically useless anyway. somehow it’s worse than fucking ETSY as far as sellers that are just dropshipping you shit for a 2 or 3x markup. anytime you find ANYTHING you wanna buy on amazon, go check china before you pull the trigger. odds are you find the same shit with the same shipping time for a fraction of the price on ali or dhgate or some shit. prime hasn’t been worth it for the better part of a decade, and it’s dreadfully apparent when you can find the same shit for sale from the same sellers, and it’s cheaper on the non-prime listing even after shipping.
I quit Amazon over a decade ago. There were a few years where I used Amazon just for window-shopping as you suggest, to get keywords or vendor names to search for outside of amazon, which involved adding these negations to my search query:
-site:amazon.com -site:amzn.to -site:amazon.co.uk -site:amazon.de -site:amazon.fr -site:ebay.com -site:ebay.co.uk -site:ebay.de -site:ebay.fr -site:walmart.com -site:newegg.com -site:aliexpress.com -site:alibiba.comPrices were often higher outside of those shithole places above. However, that’s inherent in a boycott. If the prices were better, then taking my business elsewhere would not be a boycott but merely the capitalistic market working as intended. I am willing to pay more in order to not finance the baddies.
Now Amazon is rarely useful even for window shopping because they chronically push CAPTCHAs to Tor (and I don’t do CAPTCHAs). I only even try to visit the website when someone in a conversation is pointing out a listing to me, just to see what they are talking about.
i have found some delightful vendors on ebay. like specialty tool wholesalers that are actually manufacturing their own tools, novel designs and everything!
i’d highly recommend it for anyone looking to get away from amazon, but do be mindful of sellers using amazon fulfillment. probably you can just check that there aren’t any prominent listings with the exact same product images/description as ebay.
worst case you can always return the item. ebay is pretty darn good about returns and refunds, and i reckon it’d be a bit of a headache for the dropshipper too! hahah
I boycott ebay as well because:
- Paypal-only, and I boycott Paypal. I heard a rumor that eBay lifted the paypal requirement but I’m not sure that actually had much effect. I don’t get the impression a non-paypal consumer can realistically shop on ebay.
- eBay’s required JavaScript sniffs the ports on the LANs of all those who visit the website.
Shitty corporations often have good people working for them. This is not reason not to boycott. If a boycott target were to fall, it would make room in the market for new players who those good vendors can switch to.