follow brands and creators, not stores. shop directly from their sites or support local stores
even better: reduce, reuse
most products end up in landfills, buy used, ebay, local groups, thrift, etc
learn to upholster clothing, bake bread, etc, take money away from corporations
Most small creators do not have their own online stores. They depend on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, or some combination of the three
Ugh fuck Etsy. I used to sell on there. I’d make maybe $60 on a $100 item after their stupid fees
Many small creators also sell directly on social media. Unfortunately that’s mostly corporate owned social media, but at least they dont typically get a cut of the sale.
Even still, local creators will often pop up at events and conventions and stuff. They may not have a permanent presence, but you can still often buy stuff from them in person if you keep up with where they’ll be.
What social media are you talking about? If you’re talking about Facebook marketplace, they absolutely take a cut so it’s functionally the same thing.
These pop up events you are talking about are heavily concentrated in densely populated areas. If you have access you should absolutely take advantage of them but a LOT of people rarely have access.
From what I’ve seen, Instagram. I’ve never bought anything from Instagram so I’m not sure if it’s a built-in function, or if they use something like messaging and Venmo.
Instagram takes 5% of the sale straight off the top
I never thought to look it up (since I don’t use Instagram) but there is a way to set up a shop in Instagram and THAT is where Meta gets their cut.
All these years, I thought it was like some sort of Craigslist deal where people would advertise there but deal with payments in other ways. Oops.
All good. I do a lot of buying/selling of video game consoles and parts so I have a little more knowledge of these platforms than most.
The funny thing is Facebook marketplace is truly a Craigslist 2.0. It’s generally a great experience. I hate that zuck has control of it and I’m sure enshitification will hit it soon enough
Buying a domain and a webhost costs money and people would need a regular income for that
What I’d like to see is some co-op online platform where people can collectively contribute to online costs though a small percentage of fees and / or donations
And often a bit cheaper through outlets even if they do have their own store. Still, I’ll pay a little extra to keep it in the family.
This is great advice.
The manufacturer’s site.
Ebay, unfortunately.
Ebay has a long history of being a…controversial company.
Your range is pretty broad. For digital media I have found myself using the Library more and more
Libby- ebooks, audiobooks, magazines
Hoopla- music, ebooks, audiobooks, and TV
Kanopy- films and documentaries
For real I cannot overstate how amazing a library card is with these apps.
Do without. Buy less shit.
Posted most of this in another thread but I’m glad to spread the word. I usually find things by searching what I want to buy and then adding “-amazon”, “-etsy”, or “-wayfair”.
Some general recs:
B&H Photo or Microcenter for anything electronic or computer related
Sweetwater for music stuff, there’s a lot of great small music stores, or marketplaces like Reverb
For clothes, if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website. If you don’t, go to local secondhand shops and touch, handle and try on some clothes to see them in person. I’ve discovered some brands I like by finding something in a thrift store that was well made but not my size or preferred color.
For house DIY stuff, we order from a local building supply store, but there’s also hardwareandtools.com, 1stoplighting, Waysource, Lightbulbs.com, Timothy’s Toolbox etc.
For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it’s a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites.
For super fast, need it now shipping, Target has a lot of the same things Amazon does and even does same day delivery for an extra fee for certain items.
For something hard to find you can’t find another site for, try Ebay.
I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. These are sites that I’ve personally bought from but there are a lot of smaller sites just trying to make a place for themselves on the internet
I know you’re talking about american stores because I’m aware of those stores being from america from my time on the Internet but not everyone knows those stores are from america
So this is your reminder not to use US Defaultism on lemmy
wheres that’s peep with the info on the upcoming ActivityPub version of etsy
Lots of mid-sized local stores opened web stores during the pandemic, at least here in Europe. I’ll often shop at those, even if they’re not truly local to where I live.
Bandcamp or 7Digital for music
@ALostInquirer@lemm.ee might want to add an edit to your post to get people asking for recomendatation and people giving recommendations to state what country and what locality in that country they are from without acronyms or nicknames
Might also want to state the country you’re from as well
Because I’m seeing a lot of what looks like US Defaultism in the comment and lemmy is a global platform
To anyone else reading this comment STATE WHERE YOU’RE FROM IF YOU’RE ASKING FOR RECOMENDATIONS OR GIVING RECOMENDATIONS!
Also this big text is just to get peoples attention so the comment doesn’t get buried
Who are they?
From: https://www.baen.com/faq
Founded by Jim Baen, Baen Books has been bringing readers pulse-pounding, thought-provoking adventures straight from the heart of science fiction and fantasy for decades. We publish books in hardcover, paperback, and electronic form, and are one of the few traditional publishers that maintains its own ebooks webstore (with at least four new titles added every month). We are also perhaps the only book publisher to make our electronic advanced readers copies (eARCs) available for sale to devoted fans before a book’s official release date. In addition, we also sell ebooks from other publishers. We sell more than 2000 books from over 500 authors published by 24 different companies. Good reading to all!
One of the first and longer lasting ebook publishers for a LONG time. You get DRM free books at reasonable prices.
Well at first glance it definitely seems a lot better than supporting Amazon!
Is that platform avalible globally or is it just limited to the country you’re from ?
State where you’re from because lemmy is a global platform
Go local.
I need a local searchable storefront
Aren’t pretty much all storefronts searchable, or is it a Europe thing?
I shop primarily local and find stores with ddg/Google/Google maps. I live in a country where Amazon doesn’t exist, and shipping takes at least 3-7 days, so I’ve always bought stuff from local stores. Of course not everything is sold in a physical store, for which you’ll probably have to use ebay.
For large chain stores that happen to be local, Google is fine. But I can’t get an inventory from the local mom&pop grocery. Or even the local game stores that have a website with an inventory, Google doesn’t search among them, so I’m stuck going to multiple websites to search by hand.
It’s just a pain, and if it’s a pain, I’ll only do it half as much as I could.
Ebay.
Is that america exclusive or global
I’m replying to a lot of people on this post reminding them not to use US Defaultism
Dutch and Belgium. Although if you are from there and don’t know bol.com you have your head so far in the sand they may miss this post.
In the USA, Bookshop.org allows you to buy books online, and 10% of sales (different from 10% of profits) support independent bookstores. I have a sort-of local bookstore whose hours don’t work well with my free time. I order online from bookshop.org and designate “my” bookstore to get the 10%. Win win!
Here is more info about bookshop.org
Is the platform global or america exclusive
Don’t use US Defaultism on lemmy, reddit had that problem and I don’t want it here on lemmy as well
Thanks for pointing that out, I edited my comment.
