e-Commerce without Behemoths

Recently, I wanted to buy some adapter cables for my phone. Having made the leap to a phone with a USB-C charging cable, my old travel-charging setup could use some tweaking and I wanted to get some adapters to go from USB-C (female) to Micro-USB and Lightning (male) so that everything could plug into the same double-ended USB-C cables. I looked around my various local stores and couldn't find what I wanted, so it was time to go to the internet.

But I'm trying to see how little I can use Amazon and its like. Amazon takes roughly half of the selling price in fees before it passes revenue on to its various suppliers, and I'd rather give my money to the people who actually make the product. For small-value items like cable adapters, it's very hard to find things not on Amazon.

Normal methods

My go-to method is pick a brand that I would buy from anyway and go to their website. I tried Belkin and Anker and they didn't have what I wanted. So now what do I do? In almost any web search engine (DuckDuckGo, Google, etc.) you can put a minus sign (-) in front of any search term to exclude results with that term. So my search could have been:

-amazon "usb-c" "micro"

This normally works, but no joy this time: no promising results popped up.

Unusual methods

I ended up on Wirecutter somehow and they had their own recommendations for similar adapters; not what I was looking for but the right "family" of items.. I grabbed the brands for the high-rated items and looked on their websites.

Jackpot!

I'm very excited for the adapters I bought from Cable Matters. Partly because I'm excited to improve my travel electronics kit, but also their business practice is refreshingly retro. When I had to sign up for an account and started dreading it, I opened up the terms and conditions to see if I could get out of binding arbitration and class-action waivers like every company now signs you up for...and they weren't there! Just a company trying to sell its products. I don't know how many more computer and charging cables I need to buy, but I'll keep them in mind!

Other than Cable Matters

I also recently found Iron Patches to repair my jeans: same deal as Cable Matters, with the bonus that I didn't have to create an account. 

My local bookstore prefers that if I buy online I go through bookshop.org 

And apparently I know something most of the internet doesn't, because I haven't seen any noise (and I've looked) about Munchkin discontinuing the Toss disposable diaper pail, but it's not on their website anymore. I assume that I may see more reaction online after Amazon, etc. run out of inventory. Or maybe not many people use them.

I recently got a new phone case from Smartish and I've been happy with it. Again, no limitations on our rights in their terms!

And finally as I review my recent e-purchases, I got a bunch of 1-gallon glass water jugs for emergency supplies (water-main breaks, etc.) to replace the 5-year-old plastic ones I'd been using. TricorBraun was a good price and I'm very happy with the product, I just wish I didn't have to sign up for an account before buying. And that they would drop requiring binding arbitration in their standard terms - with no opt-out even!

Conclusion

My wife tolerates my little battles with Amazon and the like, and so far going direct to manufacturers I've about broken even: a few products cheaper, a few more expensive. And I feel much better about who I'm supporting and that my dollars are going to the people who actually made what I'll use. What can you cut out of your Amazon diet?

If you have any comments, please reach out to me at blog@saprobst.com or this page is cross-posted at LinkedIn and you can leave a comment there.