I've been buying a lot of tools lately, and I've found myself in the spot where I trust Harbor Freight's supply chain more than Amazon's.

Never thought I'd see the day where I was choosing Harbor Freight for quality.

Some of my favorite tools are from harbor freight. As an example, the 1/4" ratchet with composite handle is such a pleasure to use compared to any other ratchet I've owned. I thought it was a gimmick, but I gave it a shot and now it's now my favorite ratchet.

harbor freight is excellent for some things, and abysmal for others. my cart saved my back, it's worth every penny of the 20 or so dollars. The dremel bits were just trash - I couldn't get one use out of them, same with the bench grinder.

gotta get that Harbor Freight gold plated ratchet though.

I extend this rule to any electronics above $30 and any chargers for said electronics. Sometimes cables too, I've seen horror stories about miswired USB-C cables, and some of the cheap micro-USB cables I've bought were uselessly bent up within 2 months. $3 cheaper isn't worth the risk, or the e-waste.

The last straw for me was receiving and obviously used (and gross) $800 kitchen appliance. They took the return but I took my business to the manufacturer.

I basically only buy books from Amazon now, and even there I don’t think they make print-on-demand obvious enough, and I won’t buy print-on-demand if the book is otherwise available because I’ve gotten too many bad printings.

The last time I posted about it here people defended Amazon because of their return policies. Well, the printing errors aren’t always immediately obvious. One reference book o purchased was missing a page but had a duplicate of the previous page. When printing errors are obvious, I feel like either Amazon is trying to see if I’ll complain or they’re trying to get me to do their QC.

And even if they don’t make me return the bad one... waiting another day or two isn’t great. I’d rather wait three days knowing I have to wait three days than wait one day, have to contact Amazon, and wait one more day.

I have a kindle, and I love it, and I buy books for it. I have Prime mostly because when I was buying a lot it made sense and now I sometimes watch Prime Video. But anything else is just too much work to read through fake reviews and worry about counterfeits or used goods masquerading as new.

About the fake reviews, there’s a website which is pretty good for finding those: https://fakespot.com/

Now that you mention it, "things that can start a fire" are also on the no Amazon list for me. Mainly electronics and especially if it's something that will stay plugged in.

I suppose that category also includes safety critical items. Like batteries intended for weapon lights, or offroad recovery gear.

I bought a power strip on Amazon with a surge protector that didn't work that fried some of my electronics, and it was under $30.

And yet, apparently selling counterfeit crap to rubes is better business than selling legit product. I may not trust Amazon to sell me anything these days, but I trust them to know their market and to mercilessly maximize their margins.

In my experience, the chances of getting something counterfeit on eBay is higher than it is on Amazon. I had an issue where I bought a blu ray on eBay to save a couple bucks; the product the arrived was clearly a pirated BD-R. Another time, I bought a couple of batteries for my laptop on eBay; the batteries were clearly counterfeit and of inferior construction than the more expensive original batteries.

I have never had experiences like that with Amazon, but I have read stories on the internet. I believe Amazon making it easier to leave negative feedback than eBay is one reason this kind of nonsense is less common on Amazon.

I think it's the lack of price vetting on Amazon's part that makes me hesitant to buy certain things there, e.g., groceries. That wariness happened after buying several packages of dried beans that were also available at Walmart (a retailer in the US), and then realizing I had paid literally three times the Walmart price.

Now I buy directly from Walmart if something's available there, because I have more confidence that their usual price controls are at work.

Amazon is a marketplace. There is no price vetting. If a third party wants to sell beans on Amazon for more money than they cost elsewhere, that’s not Amazon’s problem. They do not set prices for third-party sellers.

In fact, most of those beans are probably being drop-shipped from Wal Mart.

For items that Amazon is selling first-party, you can bet that they know exactly what all of the other major retailers are selling for, and they’ll be within pennies of their price, if not beating it.

If amazon is so bad (and my experience agrees that it is), why hasn't anyone stepped up to offer a viable alternative? The closest competitor I know of is walmart, but given the items they carry in their stores, it's hard to convince myself to visit their website when I want to get something quality.

I don't think it is possible to have a viable alternative to Amazon without running into the same problems Amazon has.

The alternatives that more and more people seems to be preferring is specialty sites focusing on just one or two product categories or the manufacturer making it easier to buy directly from them.