This is a list of places where I like to buy (or would like to buy) my stuff, now that I try never to rely on Amazon and that I also avoid large corporate conglomerates.
The 👑 emoji means that there is a lifetime or similar long-term warranty on the products.
Books
- Audiobooks: Libro.fm (English), Audiolib (French)
- Ebooks: if you can, go directly on the publisher’s website. Options that often (but not always, check before buying!) are DRM-free:
- Physical :
- Recyclivre (France)
- Bookshop (UK-based)
- Paris librairies (France, click-and-collect)
- Public libraries:
- Wikisource (many languages) & Internet Archive (mostly English)
- Your local public library, obviously. It probably has ebooks, and not just physical books – check them out!
Beauty & hygiene
Clothes & accessories
- Camelback 👑 water bottles & backpacks
- Columbia 👑 sportswear and more
- Jansport 👑 backpacks
- Land’s End 👑 clothes
- L.L. Bean 👑 clothes, bags and more
- Loom clothes that are made to last
- Osprey 👑 backpacks
- Patagonia 👑 sportswear and more, including business casual
Electronics
- Commown (France) 👑 headphones, computers (laptop or desktop) & Fairphone smartphones. You pay monthly and it includes repairs & replacements whenever needed.
- Fairphone smartphone (5-year warranty and designed for easy repair)
Furniture & home decor
- Herman Miller chairs & desks, 12-year warranty on most products
- Le Creuset 👑 cookware
Other
General: gifts, small things…
- The classic, Etsy. You should look for sellers in your country to keep shipping costs (and pollution) low.
- Uncommon Goods is aggressively gendered but has some cute stuff
Changelog
- 2023-01-16
- Added:
- Books: Bookshop.uk
- Furniture: Herman Miller
- Removed:
- Books: Book Depository belongs to Amazon. Thanks for flagging, Allan!
- Added:
- 2023-01-15
- Added:
- Clothes: Loom
- Added:
- 2023-01-13
- Big addition: lifetime (or similar) warranty, signalled by 👑 emoji
- New section
- Changelog
- Electronics
- Other
- Full rewrite, completely different list
- Clothes & Accessories
- Furniture
- Added:
- Books: libraries, ebooks.com (thank you HermitCyclop)
@alexture For ebooks I use ebooks.com, it seems to be independantly owned and the few books I bough here were DRM-free, although I saw they sell some ebooks with DRM too.
@HCyclop ooo merci j’ai ajouté ! je t’ai pas crédité comme j’étais pas sûr que tu voulais ton nom là et que ton compte est privé, mais dis-moi si tu souhaites que je te mentionne dans le changelog !
@alexture I see you list Book Depository as an Amazon alternative. You might want to look up who owns BD…
@haverholm nooooooooooooooooo!!ok, i believe https://uk.bookshop.org/ is safe, i’ll switch it to that. thanks so much for telling me!
My criteria:
Must ship to France without extra tax (shipping can be free or paid)
Can be any size from tiny single person selling their homemade cookies to household brand as long as it’s not a gigantic conglomerate
I will add stuff based on recommendations 🙂
I try to favour:
/r/buyitforlife, long warranty or easy to repair products – currently signalled by an emoji
ethical and eco-friendly products – not a hard criteria yet but definitely will be when I flesh out the list
Upcoming criteria:
Removing platforms (currently I have Etsy in there, and there’s obviously no guarantee of the quality of individual shops, but I’m also a bit desperate in the homemade small stuff category)
Hope it’s of good use to some of y’all!