I wanted to get printer photo paper for my printer, a Canon. I went to Walmart, They had nothing. Went to Target, they had one pack of photo paper and it was crazy expensive, so I went to micro center. That one was just as expensive. So finally I went back to Amazon, which I was trying to avoid, and saw the price 25 to 40% lower than anywhere I had been. Literally everything that I was looking for, I could find within seconds. Not even Best buy has even close to the amount of inventory or variety, even when you’re shopping online…
Therefore, I think Amazon has a literal monopoly in the tech industry right now, you’re literally forced to buy from them, because unless you have the money and financial fortitude to protest with your wallet, you’re going to be buying from them. There’s no other choice. They have so aggressively and dominantly taken over the supply chain market that no other tech company can currently compete with them in any aspect at all. You will be paying 40 to 50% more on everything by cutting out Amazon, and no one has the money for that anymore unless you’re upper middle class or above
Eh, going to disagree that Aliexpress == Temu.
Not that I’m saying Aliexpress is a paragon of virtue, but Temu is full of dark patterns, scammy “discounts” and just nonstop playing games trying to get you to buy now, refer people, and “win” shit. It’s a gambling app that happens to sell toxic trash as a side gig.
Aliexpress really has cleaned their shit up and basically sends you what you expect to get, when you expect to get it, and has made refunds for blatant bullshit (I had to return some clearly counterfeit remarked chips) if not easy then at least something you could actually accomplish.
100% agreed. There’s no way I’m touching Temu, but I do go to AliExpress every now and then. And most of the time, I can line up the Amazon listing for whatever I’m buying with a bit of research, so I can benefit from the reviews there (and not the 5 star reviews, but 1-2 star reviews).