I dont believe in Santa, and most of what “Christmas” means makes me nauseous.
And yet, I shop. Gifts, it seems, must be given.
I dont want to wander around in shops this year, which means a lot of ordering online, but I dont want to feed the Amazonian beast either. I’m okay with paying higher prices to avoid that.
What good, reliable, alternative online stuff purveyors have you discovered? Please share!
I buy a lot of books, for example, but I find the alternative options bewildering. I would order from local used bookstores, but two have told me yes, we can get you new books, “we just order them from Amazon.”
Hearing about sellers of anything that Happy Mutants might like would great, including small businesses that ship their awesome shit.
Criminal Records - the owner is one of the founders of record store day:
This is a Black owned gaming shop. I have not ordered online from them, so I don’t know how that’ll go:
And here is a local used book shop I like - we have ordered online from them, and it did take a while to get our order, but that’s because they had to order some of our books and it took a while, and they wanted to ship them together - they did get in touch to let us know, so:
And this is a fun shop with all sorts of weird and interesting things:
it did start as a junk shop and has evolved into a local institution (there is another in Athens, too, the Junkman’s Daughter’s Brother, I believe).
If your gift-receivers like chocolate, and are geeks, I can recommend Fear’s Confections. They have Star Wars and Doctor Who shaped chocolates, and they ship nationwide (US).
I can testify their chocolate sponge candy and bacon-stout brownie are wonderful.
I’ve only ordered a few books from them but i’ve had no problems and they’re great for finding those obscure ex-library reference books you may need. I use them precisely because they’re not Amazon; i used to use the Book Depository exclusively until Bezos got his claws into them. Whether they walk the talk i couldn’t say but being acquired by a not for profit organisation that’s affiliated with the Internet Archive sounds pretty damn good to me.
I was eyeing a couple of Peanuts collections and I too will not order from Amazon any more. I thought to check Fantagraphics to see if I could order directly from the publisher, and I could! Same price, cheap shipping, I ordered them Monday and had them Friday. So might be worth checking individual publishers’ sites.
It’s a long way from Juneau, AK to FL Keys, these guys have some pretty cool, organic goods using locally-harvested kelp. The Bullwhip Hot Sauce is really good, kelp and piri piri peppers. great on grits! lots more here:
Don’t forget the gift of music; directly from the artist or through Bandcamp
Adorama and B&H can supply electronics (and used/refurb stuff) easily (except on Sunday, heh)
I’ve been buying interesting stuff from Etsy (recent examples: secret world rings and wild resin pen blanks). I try to avoid reseller types, and you need to pay close attention to delivery fees, where it’s coming from, and timing (if a gift).
I have to admit I still get more from Amaz*n than I’d prefer, but I’m trying to consciously cut back.
