What are some of your online shopping alternatives to major storefronts like Amazon (for physical items or digital)?

Ebay, unfortunately.
Ebay has a long history of being a...controversial company.

The manufacturer's site.

follow brands and creators, not stores. shop directly from their sites or support local stores
even better: reduce, reuse
most products end up in landfills, buy used, ebay, local groups, thrift, etc
learn to upholster clothing, bake bread, etc, take money away from corporations
- As a small business owner (blacksmithing), I fully support this. However, about 85% of our business is through an Etsy storefront, about 10% through Amazon, with the remainder through our own site.
  I'd appreciate advice on additional storefronts.
  
  Ebay. I buy new and used things there fairly frequently.
  
  Have you looked into selling to reenactors?
  They seem willing to pay for handcrafted stuff.
  
  State where your from please
  Lemmy is global
- Most small creators do not have their own online stores. They depend on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, or some combination of the three
  
  Ugh fuck Etsy. I used to sell on there. I'd make maybe $60 on a $100 item after their stupid fees
  
  Buying a domain and a webhost costs money and people would need a regular income for that
  What I'd like to see is some co-op online platform where people can collectively contribute to online costs though a small percentage of fees and / or donations
  
  Great point. The limited times I have purchased from Amazon in recent history was accidentally in this manner. I think that purchasing directly from the creator's/company's website might send a message that some folks would like an alternative, but I don't know that. Either way, it is less amazon.
  
  Many small creators also sell directly on social media. Unfortunately that's mostly corporate owned social media, but at least they dont typically get a cut of the sale.
  Even still, local creators will often pop up at events and conventions and stuff. They may not have a permanent presence, but you can still often buy stuff from them in person if you keep up with where they'll be.
  
  And often a bit cheaper through outlets even if they do have their own store. Still, I'll pay a little extra to keep it in the family.
- This is what I do too. I try to go directly to the source either online or in person
- This is great advice.

In the USA, Bookshop.org allows you to buy books online, and 10% of sales (different from 10% of profits) support independent bookstores. I have a sort-of local bookstore whose hours don’t work well with my free time. I order online from bookshop.org and designate “my” bookstore to get the 10%. Win win!
Here is more info about bookshop.org
- This site is pretty cool. Thanks for pointing it out!
- Is the platform global or america exclusive
  Don't use US Defaultism on lemmy, reddit had that problem and I don't want it here on lemmy as well
  
  Thanks for pointing that out, I edited my comment.

@ALostInquirer@lemm.ee might want to add an edit to your post to get people asking for recomendatation and people giving recommendations to state what country and what locality in that country they are from without acronyms or nicknames
Might also want to state the country you're from as well
Because I'm seeing a lot of what looks like US Defaultism in the comment and lemmy is a global platform
To anyone else reading this comment STATE WHERE YOU'RE FROM IF YOU'RE ASKING FOR RECOMENDATIONS OR GIVING RECOMENDATIONS!
Also this big text is just to get peoples attention so the comment doesn't get buried

I use Geizhals and see wheres the cheapest.
Else it dpends on physical vs speed vs convenience.

Posted most of this in another thread but I'm glad to spread the word. I usually find things by searching what I want to buy and then adding "-amazon", "-etsy", or "-wayfair".
Some general recs:
B&H Photo or Microcenter for anything electronic or computer related
Sweetwater for music stuff, there's a lot of great small music stores, or marketplaces like Reverb
For clothes, if you have any clothes you already enjoy, go directly to their brand website. If you don't, go to local secondhand shops and touch, handle and try on some clothes to see them in person. I've discovered some brands I like by finding something in a thrift store that was well made but not my size or preferred color.
For house DIY stuff, we order from a local building supply store, but there's also hardwareandtools.com, 1stoplighting, Waysource, Lightbulbs.com, Timothy's Toolbox etc.
For food items, local grocery stores often offer online shopping and delivery. If it's a specialty item or imported the import companies sometimes have their own websites.
For super fast, need it now shipping, Target has a lot of the same things Amazon does and even does same day delivery for an extra fee for certain items.
For something hard to find you can't find another site for, try Ebay.
I do business with all sorts of independent retailers and have only had good experiences with them. These are sites that I've personally bought from but there are a lot of smaller sites just trying to make a place for themselves on the internet
- I know you're talking about american stores because I'm aware of those stores being from america from my time on the Internet but not everyone knows those stores are from america
  So this is your reminder not to use US Defaultism on lemmy

Your range is pretty broad. For digital media I have found myself using the Library more and more
Libby- ebooks, audiobooks, magazines
Hoopla- music, ebooks, audiobooks, and TV
Kanopy- films and documentaries
- For real I cannot overstate how amazing a library card is with these apps.

Ebay. Been buying most things through there and it's been nice. As always, check to see if the seller has a good rating and usually it's fine.

wheres that's peep with the info on the upcoming ActivityPub version of etsy
- Flohmarkt?

Wish and Temu? Sell about 90% of the same shit for pennies on the dollar.
But you also didn't specify that the alternatives have to be ethically superior. 🙃
- Let's say ethically better then, to be more specific and explicit. Although, if we want to talk rock bottom ethically, I think we'd have to go darkweb, no?
  
  Nah my darkweb dealer network is unionized, so it's better for sure.
  
  Not dark web, you just steal what you need
  
  I guess it depends on whether you want to buy drugs or people.
- Just go to Alibaba bro. At least they also have high quality products
  
  💀

Do without. Buy less shit.

Lots of mid-sized local stores opened web stores during the pandemic, at least here in Europe. I'll often shop at those, even if they're not truly local to where I live.

Go local.
- Idk what a local store is here. Everything is a chain.
  Food? Publix or Winn-Dixie. Thats about it, save for the Asian market on the corner and a once a week farmers market that I never seem to be able to attend.
  Meds? CVS or Walgreen's. We have a local pharmacy, insurance doesn't cover them.
  Electronics? Best buy. There's no mom and pop computer store
  Furniture / clothing / household items? Thrift stores maybe?
  Big Box stores didn't just reduce mom and pops in my area, it killed them.
  The only non-chain stores are for niche products like a smoke shop, the aforementioned Asian market, restaurants, and entertainment venues.
  
  For electronics try Swappa or Jawa
  
  I know these are american stores because you mentioned cvs, best buy and walgreens but I dont know about those other stores being from america and some people won't be aware that these stores are located in america
  Please don't resort to US Defaultism on lemmy
- I need a local searchable storefront
  
  Aren't pretty much all storefronts searchable, or is it a Europe thing?
  I shop primarily local and find stores with ddg/Google/Google maps. I live in a country where Amazon doesn't exist, and shipping takes at least 3-7 days, so I've always bought stuff from local stores. Of course not everything is sold in a physical store, for which you'll probably have to use ebay.

Bandcamp or 7Digital for music

https://www.baen.com/allbooks/category/index/id/1972 for ebooks.
- Who are they?
  
  From: https://www.baen.com/faq
  Founded by Jim Baen, Baen Books has been bringing readers pulse-pounding, thought-provoking adventures straight from the heart of science fiction and fantasy for decades. We publish books in hardcover, paperback, and electronic form, and are one of the few traditional publishers that maintains its own ebooks webstore (with at least four new titles added every month). We are also perhaps the only book publisher to make our electronic advanced readers copies (eARCs) available for sale to devoted fans before a book’s official release date. In addition, we also sell ebooks from other publishers. We sell more than 2000 books from over 500 authors published by 24 different companies. Good reading to all!
  One of the first and longer lasting ebook publishers for a LONG time. You get DRM free books at reasonable prices.
  
  Baen
- Is that platform avalible globally or is it just limited to the country you're from ?
  State where you're from because lemmy is a global platform

Google shopping or duckduckgo shopping are an easy first step. You can also search the name of the Amazon seller and see if they have their own store.

Ebay.

Bol.com
- Is that america exclusive or global
  I'm replying to a lot of people on this post reminding them not to use US Defaultism
  
  Dutch and Belgium. Although if you are from there and don't know bol.com you have your head so far in the sand they may miss this post.

mercadolibre.com is like Amazon, but in the amazon...
- Mercado libre is literally the Spanish eBay.
  
  https://www.ebay.es/

eBay and Etsy are my go-to alternatives to Amazon. My wife uses Shien for clothes.
All 3 are like Harbor Freight for tools; maybe good, maybe bad, takes some experience and discernment, which can be costly.

Also this big text is just to get peoples attention so the comment doesn't get buried