8 ms·

There are alternatives to Amazon! For general household stuff, my go to store is manufactum.com They only offer very few things, but the things they have are

There are alternatives to Amazon! For general household stuff, my go to store is manufactum.com They only offer very few things, but the things they have are very high quality. If you buy something from Manufactum, you know it'll last for the rest of your life. The stuff there is of course outrageously expensive compared to the plastic crap from Amazon, but for me that means I really think about the purchase. Do we really need two of those metal baskets for the shower that hold your shampoo bottles? Not if it costs 100€. For tools, there's dictum.com, which follows a similar philosophy. They don't offer a million choices; they make a very deliberate choice which products they sell, so you don't have to make the choice. You can rely that something you order from them is a good choice.

adrianN 7y ago
My problem with sites like manufactum is that I have the feeling that I get exactly the same stuff as I would get from somewhere else but with an insane price markup. I can either buy a random organic cotton shirt for thirty Euros, or I can buy an organic cotton shirt from manufactum and pay four times as much. What's the extra value I get?
- _petronius 7y ago
  At the very least, a price point that doesn’t externalize the real environmental cost of the item, perhaps?
  - kkarakk 7y ago
    Unless you're a "brain-washed hippy environmental activist", the markup definitely feels like a ripoff - which is the fundamental problem with any ethical shopping website. I'd gladly pay Amazon price + 5 dollars,any more and my ethics bow down to my trained budgeting
    - _petronius 7y ago
      Which probably accounts for a lot of people's behaviours, but the real cost of most products is going to be more like 100-500% markup, not a flat $5, especially once you get into cheap flights or items that have been shipped large distances. I'm not someone who believes that changes in individual consumer behaviour is going to keep up under 5 degrees of global warming, but if we don't start getting used to some of this, then there will never be the political will to enact the policies that will head off the worst of climate change.
      - gambiting 7y ago
        I'd be ok with all stores everywhere being hit with a plastic tariff that meant that a plastic bucket cost 25 euro. I'm not ok with spending 25 euro on a bucket[0] "just because" - it just feels like I'm stuffing someone's pocket at that point. [0]https://www.manufactum.com/swiss-plastic-bin-p1448058/?a=77250 https://www.manufactum.com/swiss-plastic-bin-p1448058/?a=772...
        jakobegger 7y ago
        You are paying for someone in Switzerland to make a high quality bucket. Yes, that person earns a lot more than the average chinese factory worker. But in exchange you get a better bucket. I've had a lot of cheap plastic buckets break, so I kinda understand why someone would want to get a better plastic bucket.
      - dual_basis 7y ago
        I agree with incorporating negative externalities into the cost of a product, but if the money isn't actually going toward paying for those externalities then it's just profit for the owner.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    It's not like the extra Euros are used for sucking carbon out of the atmosphere or cleaning up the oceans. They'll most likely end up in Manufactum's pocket.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  The stuff from Manufactum is not comparable to cheap stuff from somewhere else. It's a lot better quality. It's not just "organic cotton"; there's a lot more that differentiates products from Manufactum than just the type of cotton it is made from. You can see from the extremely elaborate description that they write about every manufacturer (it's a German store, so the English texts aren't as detailed) that they don't just resell random stuff from far away factories. They put a lot of thought into the products they offer. Usually Manufactum isn't the cheapest option, but their markup is not as bad as you think. If you can find the item at other stores, it'll cost about the same (+/- 10%). For example, this Herder knife costs 94€ plus shipping at Manufactum [1] and 109€ with free shipping at Amazon [2]. [1]: https://www.manufactum.at/herder-kuechenmesser-kesselscher-walkschliff-p1461766/?a=41246 https://www.manufactum.at/herder-kuechenmesser-kesselscher-w... [2]: https://www.amazon.de/Windmühle-Messer-Windmühlenmesser-Universalmesser-Hechtsäbels/dp/B002LJ102U/ref=pd_sbs_201_1/262-4962699-1636758?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B002LJ102U&pd_rd_r=a3d307aa-8125-11e9-8290-1f7ef5cdf6ea&pd_rd_w=hlAcQ&pd_rd_wg=3N2UU&pf_rd_p=74d946ea-18de-4443-bed6-d8837f922070&pf_rd_r=EGTY4ZS2ZXHV5SRZY1AR&psc=1&refRID=EGTY4ZS2ZXHV5SRZY1AR https://www.amazon.de/Windmühle-Messer-Windmühlenmesser-Univ...
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I share GP's worry. Long descriptions are only proof they spend more on content. Given the sleaziness of on-line retailers in general, how can I tell this is a genuine signal and not faked one?
    - jakobegger 7y ago
      You'll have to take my word! Manufactum is not a random online retailer. They have been around for some time, and have a certain reputation around here. They have been selling things from a paper catalog before the internet got popular. They actually still have paper catalogs, and reading them is a wonderful pastime. (I don't really use the website much, unless I am looking for something specific) But even if you don't trust me, at least they have very detailed descriptions and high resolution photographs of the products on their site. And if you order something, and you end up not liking it, you can always return it (eg. for a leather bag it's hard to judge from a photograph if you like it or not).
gridlockd 7y ago
> If you buy something from Manufactum, you know it'll last for the rest of your life. That sounds like the opposite of how I want to shop. I don't want to have to think really hard about which trivial household item I want to spend the rest of my life with. I'd rather pick a random cheap one and then not feel too bad about replacing it, if necessary.
- Nition 7y ago
  Things that last a lifetime can often be resold.
  - KptMarchewa 7y ago
    I _very_ much do not want to concern myself with pointless interaction that comes with personally selling used stuff. I never buy used things and I never sell them.
    - rout39574 7y ago
      You leave a lot of value on the table then, or in the trash.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Oh, so it's people like you I have to thank for not being able to buy quality items anymore. I thought it was a trend driven by companies, but it turns out the population of people who prefer disposable, short-lived items is real after all :/.
  - bunderbunder 7y ago
    My guess is that it is driven by nobody in particular; it's just a natural consequence of how things are working these days. Consumers shopping at big box stores happens for a reason; it saves them time and, at least in the short run, it saves them money. Big box stores offering excessive variety happens for a reason; they're trying to be all things to all people, and ultimately, having more different things on their shelves is an important part of their image as a one-stop-shop, and therefore a big part of how they compete for customers. Customers tending to just by the cheapest thing also happens for a reason. Having ended up in a store with excessive variety, and with no shopkeepers who know the product well enough to make any useful recommendations, just about the only concrete things they can reliably compare by are price and feature list. Manufacturers making cheap gizmos happens for a reason. They know that this is what consumers ultimately end up doing, so they realize that their job is to cram as many bullet points onto the back of the box as possible at as low a price as possible. They also know that consumers know that they do this, which is why they subvert what few heuristics consumers have left for trying to discern quality by doing things like sticking metal weights into the product for no other reason than to make it feel heavier. etc. etc. etc. If there was ever a backstop to limit these forces, it was the specialty shop with the knowledgeable proprietor who had years or decades' worth of experience with every single product or brand on the shelves, and heard back from their customers when things turned out to be cheap crap. But nobody's shopping there anymore, because just picking something up while you're already at Shopko will shave your time spent running errands by 45 minutes, and nobody's shopping at their website, either, because paying 8 moneys to ship something that only costs 20 moneys doesn't really make any sense.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Oh thanks for those, the problem with a lot of the online retailers I frequent is that there's just too much stuff on there, and it's really hard to discern quality from churn; filtering by price is useless because retailers will just play with prices, filtering by reviews is also useless because people are just as likely to give a cheap product 5 stars than their expensive counterpart. It's also hard to just discover quality products you never thought about getting in the first place (like a good pen + case as I've seen on there).
joshvm 7y ago
Brits can look at https://www.objectsofuse.com/ https://www.objectsofuse.com/ (there's an actual store in Oxford).
- fredley 7y ago
  Another one for people in the UK: https://www.labourandwait.co.uk https://www.labourandwait.co.uk Apparently they also now have shops in New York and Tokyo.
  - theoh 7y ago
    To be clear, though, the type of things Labour and Wait sells are selected based on criteria that have more to do with fashion than practicality or ecological sustainability. It is totally a hipster fetishization of a certain idealized time in the past. Personally, I like that style a lot, but what they offer only covers a limited range of household needs. https://www.independent.co.uk/property/interiors/back-to-basics-labour-and-wait-is-leading-the-way-with-the-latest-trend-for-old-fashioned-kit-2286694.html https://www.independent.co.uk/property/interiors/back-to-bas... Otherwild in Los Angeles has recently opened a department that sells zero-waste products. That seems to have a bit more of an environmental agenda, but it's still within this kind of fashion frame: https://otherwild.com/pages/about-otherwild-general https://otherwild.com/pages/about-otherwild-general
anonymous5133 7y ago
and don't forget ebay....which probably beats most everyone's prices by far. If you don't mind the extra few days waiting for shipping then that is by far your best bet. Also if you aren't afraid of buying second hand then going to your local thrift shop will give you by far the biggest bang for your buck, especially for clothing.
- rickyc091 7y ago
  Ha! I actually went to eBay to purchase an ergo keyboard very recently. The description said new, dented box. The photos still had the manufacturer stickers on it. They literally slapped a label on the keyboard box and shipped it to me. If it wasn't dented before it definitely would have been now. What ended up coming was a used keyboard with a key missing. I messaged the seller about it and they completely ignored me. The seller even went ahead and opened a claim on me. They would accept the item back, but I would eat the shipping costs. The item was $17 with $20 shipping; so that would mean I lose $20 returning the item. The case ended up being closed on me since I didn't ship it back within the stated timeframe. During that time I was trying to contact the seller before I lost both my item and money. I can probably escalate this some more, but the $20 isn't worth my time to contact eBay and deal with this seller. The seller has 8 negative feedback within the last month from doing the same thing to other buyers. This reminded me why I pay a little more and shop on Amazon instead.
  - mwexler 7y ago
    This. The count of miserable experiences I've had on eBay more than outweighs the few times I feel I've gotten a fair deal, or felt like I had a good experience with a buyer. eBay has high hopes to be the center of the future of commerce, but they need to work harder to protect users from bad sellers, and sellers from bad users, without making the experience (more) miserable for all. When caveat emptor is the only rule in a bazaar or shop, I and many others take our money elsewhere. Some love to bargain and to take their lumps gracefully, but my time (and money) is better spent elsewhere. (Well, until I again stumble on that one of a kind thing that I had when I was a kid and never thought I'd see again...)
cs02rm0 7y ago
> There are alternatives to Amazon! That just means there's even more choice! https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
mauvehaus 7y ago
US users might find Lehman's to be a helpful/similar resource. Their product selection skews towards old-timey/simpler life/non-electric stuff. They are located in a part of Ohio that has a large Amish population, which does explain that a bit.
- JasonFruit 7y ago
  Lehman's is great — but there's a visible quality line between the items they sell to Amish people who use it every day, and the other stuff they stock for dabblers. The gadgetier the item is, the less good the quality is likely to be.
deadbunny 7y ago
What the actual fuck, that site hijacks middle clicks as left clicks. Who decided that was OK?

adrianN 7y ago

My problem with sites like manufactum is that I have the feeling that I get exactly the same stuff as I would get from somewhere else but with an insane price markup. I can either buy a random organic cotton shirt for thirty Euros, or I can buy an organic cotton shirt from manufactum and pay four times as much. What's the extra value I get?

_petronius 7y ago
At the very least, a price point that doesn’t externalize the real environmental cost of the item, perhaps?
- kkarakk 7y ago
  Unless you're a "brain-washed hippy environmental activist", the markup definitely feels like a ripoff - which is the fundamental problem with any ethical shopping website. I'd gladly pay Amazon price + 5 dollars,any more and my ethics bow down to my trained budgeting
  - _petronius 7y ago
    Which probably accounts for a lot of people's behaviours, but the real cost of most products is going to be more like 100-500% markup, not a flat $5, especially once you get into cheap flights or items that have been shipped large distances. I'm not someone who believes that changes in individual consumer behaviour is going to keep up under 5 degrees of global warming, but if we don't start getting used to some of this, then there will never be the political will to enact the policies that will head off the worst of climate change.
    - gambiting 7y ago
      I'd be ok with all stores everywhere being hit with a plastic tariff that meant that a plastic bucket cost 25 euro. I'm not ok with spending 25 euro on a bucket[0] "just because" - it just feels like I'm stuffing someone's pocket at that point. [0]https://www.manufactum.com/swiss-plastic-bin-p1448058/?a=77250 https://www.manufactum.com/swiss-plastic-bin-p1448058/?a=772...
      - jakobegger 7y ago
        You are paying for someone in Switzerland to make a high quality bucket. Yes, that person earns a lot more than the average chinese factory worker. But in exchange you get a better bucket. I've had a lot of cheap plastic buckets break, so I kinda understand why someone would want to get a better plastic bucket.
    - dual_basis 7y ago
      I agree with incorporating negative externalities into the cost of a product, but if the money isn't actually going toward paying for those externalities then it's just profit for the owner.
- adrianN 7y ago
  It's not like the extra Euros are used for sucking carbon out of the atmosphere or cleaning up the oceans. They'll most likely end up in Manufactum's pocket.
jakobegger 7y ago
The stuff from Manufactum is not comparable to cheap stuff from somewhere else. It's a lot better quality. It's not just "organic cotton"; there's a lot more that differentiates products from Manufactum than just the type of cotton it is made from. You can see from the extremely elaborate description that they write about every manufacturer (it's a German store, so the English texts aren't as detailed) that they don't just resell random stuff from far away factories. They put a lot of thought into the products they offer. Usually Manufactum isn't the cheapest option, but their markup is not as bad as you think. If you can find the item at other stores, it'll cost about the same (+/- 10%). For example, this Herder knife costs 94€ plus shipping at Manufactum [1] and 109€ with free shipping at Amazon [2]. [1]: https://www.manufactum.at/herder-kuechenmesser-kesselscher-walkschliff-p1461766/?a=41246 https://www.manufactum.at/herder-kuechenmesser-kesselscher-w... [2]: https://www.amazon.de/Windmühle-Messer-Windmühlenmesser-Universalmesser-Hechtsäbels/dp/B002LJ102U/ref=pd_sbs_201_1/262-4962699-1636758?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B002LJ102U&pd_rd_r=a3d307aa-8125-11e9-8290-1f7ef5cdf6ea&pd_rd_w=hlAcQ&pd_rd_wg=3N2UU&pf_rd_p=74d946ea-18de-4443-bed6-d8837f922070&pf_rd_r=EGTY4ZS2ZXHV5SRZY1AR&psc=1&refRID=EGTY4ZS2ZXHV5SRZY1AR https://www.amazon.de/Windmühle-Messer-Windmühlenmesser-Univ...
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I share GP's worry. Long descriptions are only proof they spend more on content. Given the sleaziness of on-line retailers in general, how can I tell this is a genuine signal and not faked one?
  - jakobegger 7y ago
    You'll have to take my word! Manufactum is not a random online retailer. They have been around for some time, and have a certain reputation around here. They have been selling things from a paper catalog before the internet got popular. They actually still have paper catalogs, and reading them is a wonderful pastime. (I don't really use the website much, unless I am looking for something specific) But even if you don't trust me, at least they have very detailed descriptions and high resolution photographs of the products on their site. And if you order something, and you end up not liking it, you can always return it (eg. for a leather bag it's hard to judge from a photograph if you like it or not).

gridlockd 7y ago

> If you buy something from Manufactum, you know it'll last for the rest of your life. That sounds like the opposite of how I want to shop. I don't want to have to think really hard about which trivial household item I want to spend the rest of my life with. I'd rather pick a random cheap one and then not feel too bad about replacing it, if necessary.

Nition 7y ago
Things that last a lifetime can often be resold.
- KptMarchewa 7y ago
  I _very_ much do not want to concern myself with pointless interaction that comes with personally selling used stuff. I never buy used things and I never sell them.
  - rout39574 7y ago
    You leave a lot of value on the table then, or in the trash.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Oh, so it's people like you I have to thank for not being able to buy quality items anymore. I thought it was a trend driven by companies, but it turns out the population of people who prefer disposable, short-lived items is real after all :/.
- bunderbunder 7y ago
  My guess is that it is driven by nobody in particular; it's just a natural consequence of how things are working these days. Consumers shopping at big box stores happens for a reason; it saves them time and, at least in the short run, it saves them money. Big box stores offering excessive variety happens for a reason; they're trying to be all things to all people, and ultimately, having more different things on their shelves is an important part of their image as a one-stop-shop, and therefore a big part of how they compete for customers. Customers tending to just by the cheapest thing also happens for a reason. Having ended up in a store with excessive variety, and with no shopkeepers who know the product well enough to make any useful recommendations, just about the only concrete things they can reliably compare by are price and feature list. Manufacturers making cheap gizmos happens for a reason. They know that this is what consumers ultimately end up doing, so they realize that their job is to cram as many bullet points onto the back of the box as possible at as low a price as possible. They also know that consumers know that they do this, which is why they subvert what few heuristics consumers have left for trying to discern quality by doing things like sticking metal weights into the product for no other reason than to make it feel heavier. etc. etc. etc. If there was ever a backstop to limit these forces, it was the specialty shop with the knowledgeable proprietor who had years or decades' worth of experience with every single product or brand on the shelves, and heard back from their customers when things turned out to be cheap crap. But nobody's shopping there anymore, because just picking something up while you're already at Shopko will shave your time spent running errands by 45 minutes, and nobody's shopping at their website, either, because paying 8 moneys to ship something that only costs 20 moneys doesn't really make any sense.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago

Oh thanks for those, the problem with a lot of the online retailers I frequent is that there's just too much stuff on there, and it's really hard to discern quality from churn; filtering by price is useless because retailers will just play with prices, filtering by reviews is also useless because people are just as likely to give a cheap product 5 stars than their expensive counterpart. It's also hard to just discover quality products you never thought about getting in the first place (like a good pen + case as I've seen on there).

joshvm 7y ago

Brits can look at https://www.objectsofuse.com/ https://www.objectsofuse.com/ (there's an actual store in Oxford).

fredley 7y ago
Another one for people in the UK: https://www.labourandwait.co.uk https://www.labourandwait.co.uk Apparently they also now have shops in New York and Tokyo.
- theoh 7y ago
  To be clear, though, the type of things Labour and Wait sells are selected based on criteria that have more to do with fashion than practicality or ecological sustainability. It is totally a hipster fetishization of a certain idealized time in the past. Personally, I like that style a lot, but what they offer only covers a limited range of household needs. https://www.independent.co.uk/property/interiors/back-to-basics-labour-and-wait-is-leading-the-way-with-the-latest-trend-for-old-fashioned-kit-2286694.html https://www.independent.co.uk/property/interiors/back-to-bas... Otherwild in Los Angeles has recently opened a department that sells zero-waste products. That seems to have a bit more of an environmental agenda, but it's still within this kind of fashion frame: https://otherwild.com/pages/about-otherwild-general https://otherwild.com/pages/about-otherwild-general

anonymous5133 7y ago

and don't forget ebay....which probably beats most everyone's prices by far. If you don't mind the extra few days waiting for shipping then that is by far your best bet. Also if you aren't afraid of buying second hand then going to your local thrift shop will give you by far the biggest bang for your buck, especially for clothing.

rickyc091 7y ago
Ha! I actually went to eBay to purchase an ergo keyboard very recently. The description said new, dented box. The photos still had the manufacturer stickers on it. They literally slapped a label on the keyboard box and shipped it to me. If it wasn't dented before it definitely would have been now. What ended up coming was a used keyboard with a key missing. I messaged the seller about it and they completely ignored me. The seller even went ahead and opened a claim on me. They would accept the item back, but I would eat the shipping costs. The item was $17 with $20 shipping; so that would mean I lose $20 returning the item. The case ended up being closed on me since I didn't ship it back within the stated timeframe. During that time I was trying to contact the seller before I lost both my item and money. I can probably escalate this some more, but the $20 isn't worth my time to contact eBay and deal with this seller. The seller has 8 negative feedback within the last month from doing the same thing to other buyers. This reminded me why I pay a little more and shop on Amazon instead.
- mwexler 7y ago
  This. The count of miserable experiences I've had on eBay more than outweighs the few times I feel I've gotten a fair deal, or felt like I had a good experience with a buyer. eBay has high hopes to be the center of the future of commerce, but they need to work harder to protect users from bad sellers, and sellers from bad users, without making the experience (more) miserable for all. When caveat emptor is the only rule in a bazaar or shop, I and many others take our money elsewhere. Some love to bargain and to take their lumps gracefully, but my time (and money) is better spent elsewhere. (Well, until I again stumble on that one of a kind thing that I had when I was a kid and never thought I'd see again...)

cs02rm0 7y ago

> There are alternatives to Amazon! That just means there's even more choice! https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/

mauvehaus 7y ago

US users might find Lehman's to be a helpful/similar resource. Their product selection skews towards old-timey/simpler life/non-electric stuff. They are located in a part of Ohio that has a large Amish population, which does explain that a bit.

JasonFruit 7y ago
Lehman's is great — but there's a visible quality line between the items they sell to Amish people who use it every day, and the other stuff they stock for dabblers. The gadgetier the item is, the less good the quality is likely to be.

deadbunny 7y ago

What the actual fuck, that site hijacks middle clicks as left clicks. Who decided that was OK?