[atotic]

I used to be all-in on Amazon shopping, that's where I started all my shopping searches.

Now Amazon is my site of last resort for everything but books. The rest of the net has gotten competitive. I do my research on wirecutter/reddit, and buy it from manufacturer/walmart/bestbuy, other niche trustworthy stores.

The cash back I get back from my Amazon card usually covers cost of most of what I still buy from Amazon, so Amazon has become my "free goodies" shop.

I think this is great. Having "an everything store" that everyone uses always felt like a monopoly ripe for customer abuse.

[pdxandi]

Just wanted to plug bookshop.org. It benefits local bookstores and my shopping experiences have been positive. There are other great sites out there, too, if you're willing to buy used or can tolerate slower shipping.

I get the appeal of amazon.com though because their prices are competitive and the shipping is usually consistently fast. I just like local bookstores.

[jcrawfordor]

bookshop.org is operated by Ingram, which is generally the wholesaler to bookstores but also has a large online order fulfillment business. The upside of this is that Ingram is a logistics specialist and has the ability to ship very quickly and reliably---and so bookshop.org is in a way the best of both worlds, as it pays the local bookstores via their Ingram contract while also leveraging Ingram's order fulfillment business to get things shipped quickly and reliably.

[pdxandi]

That's great information. Thank you for sharing. I wasn't aware it was operated by the wholesaler to local bookstores, but that makes sense. It seems to be a smooth platform with a massive selection.