Amazon Alternatives Guide: How (and Why) to Avoid Amazon

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Originally published at: https://ethical.net/technology/amazon-alternatives-guide-how-and-why-to-avoid-amazon/

Why would anyone want to avoid Amazon? A one-stop shop for everything from books to clothes to mermaid pillows of Nicolas Cage’s face photoshopped onto Kim Jong Un’s head, they’ve made it possible for almost anything you desire to appear on your doorstep the next day with the click of a button. But worker exploitation,…

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I think it’s fair to say that this article lost all credibility in paragraph one thanks to the inclusion of the Amazon affiliate link.

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Hi Charlie, thank you for your comment. If you’re referring to the pillow, I can assure you we do not use affiliate links. The purpose of the writer was just to add some sense of humour to the article, that’s all.

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Whether it’s affiliated or not, I guarantee you’ve generated Amazon sales with that link.

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Personally, I doubt it, as someone who is already reading this article will not be interested in purchasing Amazon products, let alone a completely unnecessary pillowcase. So, I am not sure what makes you think that but it’s not relevant anymore since the pillowcase is now unavailable.

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Thanks for this great article. I’ve already stopped buying from Kindle and started using Kobo. It’s not as user friendly as Kindle but it works fine and I own the books which is good. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem that there is a good alternative online shop yet. I stopped using amazon and have gone back to my old account on ebay. Also, I’ll try to use local shops more often when I can rather than ordering from ebay. According to the article, ebay is not ethical but, I guess it’s much better than amazon atm. Hopefully new ethical online services can compete.

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I had never noticed that IMDb was an Amazon company, even though it’s right there in the site footer. I guess I just never scroll down that far!

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Same with Unilever or Coca-Cola… People don’t really read the labels.

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Strangely I do always look at the label when I buy food, etc. but somehow don’t think of it so much with online services, etc.

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I’ve built a little site Ethical Book Search which makes it easy to search more responsible book sellers for a book you want to buy online including Hive and World of Books which are mentioned in this article.

Give it a go and let me know what you think.

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Thank you! What about workers’ rights? I think this is an important aspect that should be taken into account. What do you think?

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Treating workers fairly and ethically, as humans not as tools, should be a huge part of how we judge any company.

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Absolutely. All the book sellers included in the UK version of Ethical Book Search are covered by Ethical Consumer’s report on book sellers https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/retailers/shopping-guide/booksellers which takes into account workers rights

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I’m pleased to have launched ScandiBugs Ethical Children’s Store earlier this year. We focus on sustainable children’s clothing and toy brands with ethical production standards. Many of our brands, most notably some of the Scandinavian clothing brands put a significant amount of effort into ensuring their factories are well run and the workers well looked after.

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Thank you for sharing, David! There’s another topic on sustainable toys. You may want to share this there too :slight_smile: Sustainable Kids’ Toys Lots of luck! :crossed_fingers: