Amazon Alternatives Guide: How (and Why) to Avoid Amazon (2024)

Why would anyonewant to avoid Amazon?

A one-stop-shop foreverything from books to clothes to pillowsfeaturing Nicolas Cage’s face photoshopped onto Kim Jong Un’s head,it has made it possible for almost anything you want to appear on your doorstepthe next day.

But workerexploitation, tax dodging and invasions of customers’ privacy are just the tipof the iceberg when it comes to Amazon’sunethical business practices.

And while Amazon.com is their best known venture, theyhave fingers in more pies than you might expect; services like AWS, Twitch andeven IMDb fall under their grasp.

It might seemimpossible to remove Amazon from yourlife if you prefer shopping online—but youcan still avoid Amazon to a degreeby using some more ethical Amazon alternativesinstead.

🧐 In a hurry? Here's our summary of the top Amazon alternatives out there:

Amazon AWS AlternativeFor Buying BooksFor Buying Baby ProductsFor buying Workout wearPrime video / music alternativeKindle alternatives

Service	Best for / description
	100% green powered hosting, affordable domain registration and website services
	zero-carbon data centre providing domain registration, hosting and cloud services
	not-for-profit collective providing internet services, web design and hosting to supporters of peace, the environment and human rights

Service	Best for / Main features
	buying books, CDs, DVDs and vinyls while supporting local independent book stores
	this US-based certified B Corp donates a book for every book purchased
	finding any book you need in a library near you

Service	Best for / Main features
	ethically made baby items from clothing to food
	toxic-free and environment-friendly biodegradable diapers

Service	Best for / Main features
	ethical fashion made entirely from bamboo
	wide range of ethical goods (from fair trade to organic, recycled to vegan), including; food, books, and clothes
	fair trade online supermarket for groceries and household items

Service	Best for / Main features
	watching UK programmes free online (you’ll need a TV license, and need to be based in the UK)
	watching Channel 4 programmes free online
	watching new and old films online for a monthly fee of £4.99

Service	Best for / Main features
	DRM and DRM-free eBooks and eReaders
	DRM-free audiobooks

Amazon: A Brief History

In 1995, Amazon began as an online bookstore operating out of Jeff Bezos’s garage. They were already making $20,000 per week within the first two months.

The companycontinued to snowball, and Bezos was named Person of theYear by Time magazinein 1999 after listing his company on the stock exchange. Time said that Amazon represented “a sign of the e-world yet to come, a place in which technology allowsall of us to shop, communicate and live closer together.”

In the same year, Amazon reported $350 million in losses.However, Bezos was confident that they would be profitable by the year 2000—andthey finally began to make a profit in 2001.

In recent years, Amazon’s growth has continued at a startlingpace. In 2018 they near-doubled their profits (from $5.6bn to$11.2bn) and left their competitors eBay, Walmart, Etsy, Target,BestBuy behind to become the eCommerce king they are today.

As an eCommerce site, it’s even supplanted retailer Walmart as ultimate capitalist villain.

4 Reasons to Avoid Amazon

Despite theconvenience Amazon brings, it’s easy tofind reasons to remove them from your life. Here are some of the key issueswith the company and their practices:

1. Worker Exploitation

Amazon has been accused of exploiting theirglobal, 650,000-strong workforce in many ways.

In the UK, ambulance services were called out to Amazon warehouses 600 timesover a three-year period. To put this number into perspective, there wereonly eight call-outs in a nearby supermarket’s factory of a similar size overthe same period. Why is that?

Working conditionsin Amazon’s warehouses can bedraconian. UK warehouse worker Aaron Callaway spoke out about how he has tospend ten-and-a-half hours a shift on his feet, moving each item to the correctlocation in 15 secondsor less—or face a warning from his manager.

Such an exhaustingand repetitive role has taken a huge physical and mental toll—“I feel like I’velost who I was,” Callaway says.

The conditions inthe warehouses of Amazon’s Chinesesuppliers are even worse. A 2018 investigation found workers in Hengyang wereexpected to work a 60-hour week(five eight-hour days, with two more hours of overtime each day and another tenon Saturday) for just 14.5 yuan (£1.66) an hour.

The undercoverinvestigator who infiltrated the factory as a worker found herself expected toclean 1,400 Echo Dot speakers a day, using a toothbrush dipped in alcohol toremove any dust. She recorded her colleagues’ complaints of numb hands and sorenecks, backs and eyes from performing the same action again and again for hourson end.

Four-and-a-halfhours into her shift, “I was already so tired and my movements growing slower,”she wrote. “I brushed with less and less force. There were 20 or 30 speakersbuilding up in front of me that I had yet to brush clean.” And when she hadslowed down from fatigue, her line manager told her to brush faster.

When Bezos lastyear collected an award for “outstandingpersonalities who are particularly innovative, and who generate and changemarkets, influence culture and at the same time face up to their responsibilityto society,” he told the audience: “I’m very proud of ourworking conditions and very proud of the wages we pay”

Earlier this year,when Bezos “challenged otherlarge retailers to raise their minimum wage“, Walmart execs hit back asking Amazon to pay their taxes.

2. Tax Avoidance

Amazon use various loopholes to pay the lowestamount of tax possible. Many big businesses do the same, but Amazon regularly make headlines because ofthe tremendous amount they hoard. Theypaid no US federaltax on the $11.2billion profit they made in 2018, due to unspecified“tax credits” as well as a tax break for executive stock options.

In 2017, theEuropean Commission found that Amazonhad benefited froman illegal tax deal granted by authorities in Luxembourg, which allowed the company to reduce its taxbill by €250m over 2006 to 2014.

The case centredaround two subsidiaries incorporated in Luxembourg and controlled by the USparent company—Amazon Europe HoldingTechnologies (described by the commission as “an empty shell”, with noemployees or offices) and Amazon EUgroup, which transferred 90% of its operating profits to the holding company,where they weren’t taxed. Therefore, Amazonpaid an effective tax rate of just 7.25%, compared to Luxembourg’s national rateof 29%.

Amazon also make a lot of money from taxpayersubsidies, further rubbing salt into the wound. It’s reportedthat their HQ2 project—a new corporate headquarters based in Virginia—will costUS taxpayers $4.6 billion, causing politicians from both sides to question thedeal.

3. Market Dominance

Amazon have achieved massive growth across manysectors by prioritising size over profit, which gives them a lot of leeway interms of pricing.

Take Amazon Prime, for example. It’s undeniably agreat deal. In the UK, you pay £10 a month as an AmazonPrime customer for unlimited, one-daydelivery at no extra cost. This costthe company $28 billionin 2018, but they clearly think it’s worth it in the long run.

This is somethingsmaller businesses or even other eCommerceplatforms can’t compete with. So it’s no wonder that many have decided to jointhe site as third-party sellers: butthey’ll have to give up at least 15% of revenueto sell on the site (and this percentage can often be higher based on warehouseand fulfilment costs).

But even if yourbusiness decides to sell on Amazon, Amazon will still be competing against yourproducts—and as it’s their platform, the game is riggedin their favour.

Third-partysellershave to communicate with their customers through Amazon’smessaging system, which Amazon monitor.If Amazon believe you’ve violated theirrules—by doing something as simple as sending the customer a non-Amazon URL—you can be immediately suspendedfrom the platform.

Amazon’s dominance of the online marketplace has knock-on effects in the real world: thegiant pays far less in business rates on its UK properties than mosttraditional rivals, further strengthening their hand against town centres andmalls which already struggle to turn a profit compared to online retailers. Sociologistshave long known that in-person shopping generates social andcivic benefits for a community.

Stacy Mitchell ofthe Institute for Local Self-Reliance hasbeen researching Amazon’s businesspractises for years and is troubled by the way the company seems not just towant to be the top online retailer, butto control the underlying infrastructure of commerce—and beyond.

Because aside fromproducing hit TV shows and publishing books, Amazonare slowly but steadily expanding their power into the physical world bybuilding out their shipping infrastructure in a bid to supplant the UnitedStates Postal Service, as well as making inroads in healthcare and finance.

4. Privacy Concerns

Through the Echoand Alexa, smart TVs and Kindles, Amazon is keen to record as much informationabout its users as possible. This data can be used to sell products, or sold onto advertisers and marketers.

Amazon-owned smart doorbell maker Ring made headlinesearly in 2019 when it faced claims thatteams had “unfiltered, round-the-clock live feeds from some customer cameras”—including captures from indoors—despitehaving no need to do so.

Meanwhile, Amazon have patented facialrecognition technology which could be used with theirdoorbell tech—by creating a database of “suspicious persons”, such as convictedcriminals or registered sex offenders, it would be able to recognise unwantedvisitors.

Although mostversions currently lack a camera, the ubiquitous Alexa is also a privacynightmare. Amazon have admitted that ateam of thousands listen to selected recordings captured by the smart speaker,to improve the voice recognition software (these employees work nine-hour days,with each worker listening to as many as 1000 audio clips per shift).

Bloomberg reportsthat the “teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need helpparsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording.” They also claimthat “two of the workers picked up what they believe was a sexual assault.”

Other Non-Ethical Amazon Competitors

Walmart

Walmart is a go-to hypermarket for consumers, withnot only physical stores worldwide, but also onlinemarketplace Walmart.com.Additionally, Walmart owns the Asdachain in the UK, online retailers Jet.com and Shoes.com, and sells everythingfrom home goods to groceries, clothes,and single-use items.

Although Walmart claims it isincreasingly environmentally responsible, with so much groundto cover and a business model prioritising affordable prices, it’s akin to Amazon in terms of predatory pricingallegations, working conditions, and wages.

Newegg

Newegg.com is an onlinestore offering a wide selectionof computer hardware, electronics, games, and accessories. It’s known for its good deals compared to other platforms, sinceit’s a specialist seller. Although Neweggstates that it is “dedicated to conducting business in a lawful andethical manner”, the company hasn’t made any efforts towardssustainability.

eBay

Unlike Amazon,eBay primarily offers third-party sellersa platform to auction secondhand items. However, Amazonand eBay have both evaded taxes, aswell as failing to stop sales of invasive plantspecies which could have a devastating effect on native ecosystems.

AliExpress

Chinese retail techgiant Alibaba’s AliExpress is an online shopping platform quickly gainingtraction in the eCommerce world due toits low prices. However, like mostlarge retail companies, AliExpress hasbeen criticised for predatory pricing and mistreatment of employees. Earlierthis year, AliBaba’sco-founder Jack Ma defended a 72-hour working week.

Closing Your Amazon Account

There’s much morethat could be said about Amazon’sunethical business practises. But if the above is enough to convince you toavoid the company and start using some ethical Amazonalternatives instead, the first step is to close your account.

To close your account completely, you’ll have to contact Amazon directly via their website.

👉 Here’s a good guide that will take you through the many steps you’ll have to go through to get it sorted—it’s almost as though Amazon made it difficult on purpose…

When you doeventually manage to confirm your cancellation, you’ll lose access to anydigital content you’ve purchased on the platform, as well as your customerprofile and account history.

If you have an Amazon Web Services or Kindle Direct Publishing account, you need tocontact those teams separately.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: Amazon Web Services/Hosting

You might not haveheard of Amazon’s cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS)—but, essentially,it powers much of the internet, and handles data storage for everyone fromNetflix to the CIA. AWS is where the majority of Amazon’s profitscome from.

The bad news isthat if you spend any amount of time online at all, it’s almost impossible toavoid coming into contact with AWS.

Netflix, The Guardian, and Airbnb are just a few of the thousands of services built using AWS—if you’re dedicated to fully and completely removing Amazon from your life, you’ll have to limit your internet usage to sites you simply can’t live without.

💡 You can use this tool to check where a website is hosted, and follow these instructions to fully block your computer from accessing any site using AWS on your computer.

(Full disclosure: ethical.net iscurrently hosted on AWS – but we are looking into alternativeoptions!)

However, if you’resimply looking for Amazon alternativesto host a site of your own on, there are plenty of options available to you:

Kualo

Kualo are a hostingservice with a focus on sustainability: they’re 100% green powered, run anenergy-efficient data centre and even provide home working for staff tominimise travel

Netcetera

Netceteraboast a zero carbon data centre—they claim tohave saved 2.4M KG of CO2 to date. They offer domain names, web hosting, cloudhosting, dedicated servers and data centre colocation. Netcetera’s UK-basedZero Carbon data centre is in the Isle of Man.

GreenNet

GreenNet are anot-for-profit collective, and have been offering hosting to supporters of theenvironment and human rights since 1985! They worked with organizations such asBritishNaturalists Association, UNESCO, and End Water Poverty.

Acorn Host

Acorn Host offer green hosting for ethical businesses and organizations only, their ultimate package covers 20GB space and 500 GB bandwidth.

Timpani

For WordPress hosting, the UK-based Timpani was “created by a team of experts with an unmatched knowledge of all aspects of WordPress and cloud technology”. It understands “that WordPress demands exquisitely-tuned security, performance and flexibility. Timpani does this right out of the box. Developers enjoy performant, rock-solid WordPress instances; superb staging and deployment facilities; and support from humane experts.”

It offers two hosting plans, with the cheapest costing £10 per month.

S4 Hosting

S4 stands for “sustainable, speedy, secure and stable”. The company believes in ethical and affordable web and mail hosting, and makes these services easy with human setup, monitoring, and back-ups, plus managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting for e-commerce and blogs alike.

As for ethical policies, it supports local non-profit organisations and charities by offering subsidised or free web hosting, and donates a minimum of 10% of its annual profits to social, ethical, and environmental good causes.

💡 For more recommendations, you can check out the hosting section of our resources page.

AWS might benigh-on impossible to avoid (and bear in mind that some of the alternativesrecommended below might use it!), but it’s much easier to take a stand againstthe other arms of Amazon’s business.

Take shopping, forexample. If you’re willing to pay a little extra and wait just a bit longer forthe goods to arrive, there are heaps of Amazonalternatives available to replace four of Amazon’smost popular categories.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: Buying Books

Originally an online bookseller, Amazon now also offers a large selection of titles for free via Prime. Of course, low fees tend to mean less money for authors and publishers. (Along with refusing to pay any taxes along the way.)

Here are some ethical alternatives for purchasing books, either online or in person:

Book Cities

Book Cities is a non-profit project created to promote independent bookshops.

Available for iOS, its smartphone app helps you discover and search new bookstores. It displays the nearest stores wherever you go (see ‘Near Me’), and gives opening hours, addresses, contact details, and store descriptions.

World of Books

Ethical Book Search

A user contacted us via the comments to share the Ethical Book Search service they have built.

It works as a price-comparison service across a range of independent and/or ethical sellers, which currently includes Better World Books, Biblio, Blackwell’s, eBooks, and Kennys.

The site notes that: “These booksellers are not perfect but they have much better records than many of their competitors.”

Hive

Hive give apercentage of each purchase to an independent bookstore of your choice.

Better World Books

Founded in Indiana,US, Better World Books donate a book to someone in need for every one theysell. They are a certified Bcorporation since 2008.

Worldcat

WorldCat connects people to the collections and services of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide, helping you find any book you search for at a nearby library.

And a specialmention goes to which locates library books near you. Support yourlocal libraries!

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: Baby Products

Amazon makes a killing from baby products, but is there a more sustainable alternative?

Little Green Radicals

Little Green Radicals also fits the bill.

“From the beginning our clothes have always been organic and Fairtrade. We are energised by a desire to improve what we make, the way we treat the people who make it and our impact on the environment. Our ambition remains for Little Green Radicals to blaze a trail for an ethical fashion revolution.”

Babipur

Founded by wife andhusband, the UK company Babipur sell a range of ethically-made baby items; fromclothes to food to toys.

Beaming Baby

Beaming Baby are aspecialist provider of biodegradable diapers that are toxic-free andenvironment-friendly.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: For Buying Jewellery

Jewellery entails its own ethical concerns, especially in terms of how it was created, or where it came from. Then there’s buying jewellery from Amazon, which comes with an additional array of issues including tax, workers’ rights, and everything else mentioned above.

Yala

Wearth

Wearth use onlyrecycled silver and gold to create their pieces and they have a zero-waste,vegan and cruelty-free policy.

Made

Made’s products arehandmade by Kenyan artisans, andproduced using reclaimed brass from the local area.

Cred

Cred use only fairtrade-certified gold, and also sell a range of lab-grown diamond rings.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: For Clothes/Fashion

Clothing is something we can’t do without, despite the fashion industry being an especially exploitative one. From sweatshops to prohibitive labour laws, its negative impacts are numerous.

Here are some ethical options for fitness, clothing, and fashion:

Patagonia

As well as providing sustainable clothing, Patagonia has taken on a variety of ethical directives:

“From supporting youth fighting against oil drilling to suing the president, we take action on the most pressing environmental issues facing our world.”

It provides grants to grassroots environmental groups, and has pledged 1% of its total annual sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment.

As for the clothing itself, there’s a strong emphasis on repairing rather than replacing.

Good On You

Good On You was “created to use the power of people’s choices to drive a sustainable future.” It aims “to make sustainable shopping easy for millions of people around the world by being the best, most trusted source for brand ratings, articles and expertise on ethical and sustainable fashion.”

Good On You contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 12: “Ensure sustainable production and consumption patterns.”

Adrenna

Adrenna are aworkout wear brand working towards zero waste production that is aiming totackle mass-production in the fashion industry by offering custom madeproducts.

Bam

Bam’s exercise gearis made entirely from bamboo! The big hitters of the ethical fashion world, People Treeand Patagonia,also have their own workout wear lines.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: Prime (Shopping)

Prime is an attractive proposition for many shoppers, especially as Amazon will deliver many items within just a day or two. However, this puts a strain on local businesses and independent websites, which can’t match Amazon’s loss-leading tactics.

Shopping with Prime isn’t necessarily as cheap as you may have expected. Often, similar items are available in local stores for a similar price, and you’ll be helping the local economy, rather than a megacorp who pays next to no tax.

The point is, Amazon is relying on the fact that many users will stick with the service, even if it’s not the most ethical option.

The Ethical Shop

The appropriately named Ethical Shop is owned and managed by New Internationalist magazine. You can sort brands according to their values and/or chosen causes, and the company works closely with ethical, eco-friendly, and fair trade suppliers.

Ethical Superstore

Ethical Superstore guarantees fair prices at every stage of the supply chain. It stocks a range of fair trade, organic, vegan, and eco-friendly products. Every one of its products will have ethical credentials in at least one of the following areas:

Veo

Launched in June 2019, Veo aims to become “the earth-friendly Amazon”. It says:

“Veo is the UK’s most sustainable online shopping destination, showcasing thousands of unique products from over 150 independent brands across Fashion, Beauty, Food & Home. We don’t believe customers should have to compromise in their choices if they are wanting to shop sustainably, so at Veo you don’t have to.”

Secondhand Shopping

For secondhand buys, here are a few places you can check out:

• Preloved: an online store for all things secondhand, from furniture to clothes
• Oxfam Online Shop: Oxfam, the charity fighting poverty, raises money through its secondhand clothing stores and online shop for ethical-minded consumers.

EthEthical Amazon Alternatives: Alexa/Ring

Smart tech is almost always surveillance tech, and Alexa is no different. There’s a lack of transparency surrounding the service, while the device itself never stops listening to you. Amazon even employs people to sift through recordings, to ‘improve the service’, as reported by Time:

“Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording.”

You shouldn’t need to be told why having a recording device in your house that is designed to always be on is bad for privacy.

In a similar vein, Ring security devices (including video doorbells) have a strong relationship with law enforcement, while the company was subject to a 2020 class action lawsuit “by more than 30 people in 15 families who say their devices were hacked and used to harass them”.

Once again, it’s a home recording device, but this time with a camera attached.

If you do plan to use Alexa/Ring, make sure to change your passwords regularly, use a password manager, and enable two-factor authentication (2FA) at the very least.

It’s still relatively early days for voice assistant technology, but there are a couple of alternative options being developed to rival Alexa in the long term:

Mycroft

Mycroft is the world’s first open-source voice assistant, which promises to never sell your data or feed you ads.

Gladys

Gladys is an open-source home assistant designed for smart homeowners; you’ll need a bit of tech knowhow to get the software up and running, but it’s growing into a capable tool.

Snips

Snips seemed a viable alternative to Alexa until November 2019, when media giant Sonos acquired the service for approximately $37.5 million.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: Prime Video and Music

If you don’t want to support Amazon by using Prime Video, there are various streaming options available. Scoring high in Ethical Consumer’s UK video streaming rankings are:

Funkwhale

Funkwhale is a “community-driven project that lets you listen and share music and audio within a decentralized, open network”.

It consists of many independent pods which can communicate using standard, free, and open-source technology. The network is not tied to any corporation or entity, giving you independence and choice.

Resonate

Resonate is building a new music economy based on fairness, transparency, and co-operation. As it notes, its model is unique:

“Contrary to virtually every other streaming service, Resonate is building our system open source. Being a cooperative, it fits with our ethos of openness and transparency, but we’re doing that for other reasons as well – overwhelming efficiency and prosperity.”

BBC iPlayer

BritishBroadcasting Corporation’s internet streaming platform BBC iPlayer (whichyou’ll need a UK TV licence towatch legally!) allows UK-based viewers to watch BBC programmes online.

All 4

Owned by Channel4,All4 is a video on demand service offering a variety of programmes recentlyshown on Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4 and 4Music.

BFI Player

BFI Player is asubscription service by the British Film Institute, to watch newly releasedfilms in the UK as well as old classics. The subscription is free for 2-weeks,then £4.99 a month.

Flix Premiere and MUBI are also recommended indie filmsubscription services.

AmazonPrime Music givesusers access to 2 million songs and over 1000 playlists and stations. But thereare Amazon alternatives to replace thebehemoth. For example, Resonate is a community-owned musicnetwork that pays artists at higher rate for streams—what takes other services200 plays takes them just nine. They operate with a pay-as-you-play model, withno monthly fees.

Ethical Amazon Alternatives: Kindle

Since it was firstreleased in 2007, the Kindle has helpedto cement Amazon’s position as ‘theworld’s largest bookseller.’ But the books sold through Kindle are also under a severe restriction, called DRM (DigitalRights Management). This means that Amazoncan edit or remove the ebooks that you’ve bought at any time—they’re nevertruly your own.

Kobo

Tech hardware is,of course, currently almost impossible to produce ethically; but with regardsto data ownership and privacy, your best of the Amazonalternatives is probably Kobo, which sells DRM and DRM-freeeBooks as well as eReaders.

Note that there’sno option to differentiate between the two when searching on the site, but the Switching Socialproject have built an unofficial search page here!

Libro.fm

If you live in theUS or Canada, you can also buy DRM-free audiobooks at Libro.fm. And as the audiobooks arepurchased from a local indie bookstore of your choice, you’ll also be investingin your community at the same time.

Web hosting, online shopping, video and music and voice assistants are the main pillars of Amazon’s business, but this is by no means the only areas they’re active in: for a full list of Amazon-owned businesses (including Twitch, IMDb and Goodreads), see here.

If you plan to buy an e-reader or tablet, we’d advise looking at refurbished secondhand models, to lessen overall environmental impact.

Over to You

It may feel likevoting with your wallet is futile—but boycotting unethical companies, and,crucially, convincing others to do the same, are the first steps in driving thecultural change that will compel politicians to take action. After all, onlyafter public outcry in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal areregulators seriously considering the tech giants as monopolies whichmust be broken up.

Some organisations lobbying for Amazon to change its ways are:

Global Tax Justice: campaigning for greater transparency, democratic oversight andredistribution of wealth in national and global tax systems

Institute forLocal Self Reliance: the ILSR challenges concentrated economicand political power

China Labor Watch: dedicated to workers’ fair share under globalisation

Privacy International: a charity that challenges the governments and companies that want toknow everything about us

And some further reading:

Amazon’s Stranglehold:How the Company’s Tightening Grip is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs andThreatening Communities

Amazon’s AntitrustParadox

Amazon Profits FromSecretly Oppressing its Supplier’s Workers: An Investigative Report on HengyangFoxconn

Alexa, StopBeing Creepy!

Boycott Amazon