this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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I don't know where you live, but shopping offline is a nightmare here (germany). Not only can you drive a lot to actually find any store that might have the shit you need, but also have to find parking. And then pay more for that than shipping costs of a fucking 200" TV.
And then you have to deal with overcrowded shops with a gazillion stinky people in line just to endure a totally clueless yet unmotivated employee.
And then they offer one or two of the things you want. Nowhere near what you actually want or way too cheap or way too expensive. Or just plain crap. Or exactly what you want, but in pink hello Kitty design.
And then...despite all our legal rights and customer protection laws, you can fight every fucking merchant ever whenever you the dislike the product after a few days or, god beware, it broke and you need a new one or at least repairs.
Amazon got me 20yrs ago when my top of the line gaming GPU broke after 2 years and they just refunded it, no questions asked. And they still do. I literally saved a 100k on their lash policy over those 20yrs.
I hate amazon from the depths of my heart, I avoid any and every us-company, all big tech and social media and whatnot. But those damn fuckers? I would have to spend triple to get a fraction of everything and drive hundreds of hours. And I'm a goddamn cheapskate that turns around any cent, despite having enough.
We only have one other very big shop here for online, and they only have a tiny fraction. I shop there too, but....
Yeah, I'm in the US and what you described matches the experience here too.
One major point though, the physical locations still have to pay humans, in my community, to operate. It's not much, but these days I consider it roughly a moral duty to do what I can to force companies to spend money on employees.
And then otherwise at our house we just buy more and more stuff second hand. Quality in everything is trash anymore, even just packaging is barely functional trash these days. Everything you open destroys itself, including stuff that's supposed to reseal with a zipper, like a bag of cheese. Gotta make line go up!
Fair points. We actually do buy much stuff used, even clothes. As a principle. Though I always kinda feel bad to buy stuff others could have needed more or are forced financially to do so. It's a mixed bag....
As for employees that's another thing. Offline shopping is so annoying that most stores closed already and the inner cities here basically became lil Istanbuls where you can't even read the signs anymore unless you can read Arabic. What's left are mostly chains, of which many are US-owned or lick US-boots (nothing against you guys, but the country and its course). So buying there or at Amazon doesn't change much. Super large companies that shit on employees and would rather own slaves than pay minimum wage.
And the few shops where shopping is still fun, peaceful and with a variety that sparks joy, are often shops not meant for the average Joe. The last one we strolled through was awesome. Except that unless they see your platinum or better card they wouldn't even talk with you. And we usually don't look like we're loaded and we got treated this way. So fuck them too.
I hate offline shopping. And I loved it 30yrs ago. I went to the city core every day and shopped like an idiot. It was fun, informative and efficient. Now that feels like a story from my dead granny
Look here for alternatives of Amazon: https://lmaa.space/
If you had read my comment you'd known that none of those stores actually do customer service. Especially not in germany. I tried nearly every shop - mostly electronics - and I heavily regretted every single one. Except those where I never had a reason to use customer services.
Finding other stores is not really the problem.