📦 Reasons to Quit Amazon
Photo: Alex Porter
I am working on Quitting Amazon.
No, it is not easy but I am making progress and hope I can pave the way for others to follow.
When I moved to Cottage Grove, Oregon in 1997, the town was just getting a Walmart. My parents were paying close attention to this development, so I was aware at age 14 that Walmart was running a PR campaign in town to build support for the impending arrival of the “Superstore”. They ran ads in the local newspaper and offered local businesses instruction on how to compete and survive given this new convenience. Most of those stores did not survive and the charming historic Downtown remains a shadow of what it was before Walmart’s arrival, though thankfully it is experiencing a recent resurgence in small business (almost 30 years later).
I have since witnessed the same thing here in big city Seattle. I am part of numerous Vintage Seattle groups here on Facebook where the members lament the good old days when Downtown was a safe and vibrant shopping destination. Meanwhile, most of those people never go downtown and buy all of their stuff on Amazon. I am downtown all the time and i lament the changes as well. This can’t be blamed 100% on Amazon but we really can’t have our cake and eat it too.
Amazon mails everone in Puget Sound an annual communityy impact statement highlighting the millions of dollars they spend on social programs in the region, which I appreciate, but which is pennies compared to their revenue which just this year passed Walmart as the highest revenue company in the world.
Amazon.com, you may recall, started as a humble online bookseller. Jeff had a bell ring every time there was an order—imagine that bell ringing today. Borders Bookstore was the main brick and mortar competitor to Barnes & Noble at the time, but they made the strategic flaw of outsourcing their online business to Amazon which eventually put the company out of business. Barnes & Noble has faced a similar outcome but is having a resurgence recently thanks to letting local management choose which books to sell in their stores.
Amazon’s secret sauce is its tech. They got so good at running such a big website that they began to offer their technology as a service for other companies. Today, you’d be hard pressed to find a company that isn’t using Amazon Web Services in some way. So now we all rely on Amazon for all of our shopping and most companies rely on them for their back-end technology. Google, Microsoft and Oracle all compete but just aren’t as big.
Being a Seattle-based company, I have had many friends work at Amazon. I admired them and the company’s creative value system for years, but over time, its incessant focus on speed and revenue growth has outshined the coolness of its innovation. All but one of my friends who have worked there turned sour on the company and got burned out. Mental health among Amazon employees I have known has been very challenging. Many corporate workers work so much they never have time to go spend thier earnings at local establisments. Quitting is difficult given the high pay and golden handcuffs of Amazon’s continuous stock option vesting schedule.
Meanwhile, Amazon imported thousands of corporate workers into the Seattle area, paying six- or multiple six-figures as annual salaries. Seattle is now a rich city which sounds great until you see how much housing prices have gone up and look at how many people have been either pushed out to the suburbs or onto the streets. Even distant suburbs are unaffordable for so many now, so no one can escape it.
Yet we all continue to buy everything from Amazon. And their services continue to expand. I met my remaining friend who works there for lunch at Whole Foods (Amazon) and we talked about my healthcare and he recommended Amazon Health. We could live in an All-Amazon world but I don’t want to so I am quitting.
Prime is hard to quit. Quick delivery. Prime Video. Alexa. My life is all tied up in this stuff, but as I started to say, I am making progress. I will share more in the future, but for now, a few quick recommendations:
📦 Reduce Shipments - Do I really need everything tomorrow? No. I have started adding things to my Amazon cart and leaving them there until I feel like placing an order. Eventually I plan to stop the Prime membership and simply pay shipping for those orders if necessary. Amazon tells you how much you saved with Prime but it’s a lot because you are ordering everything individually.
🌿 Try Grove - Grove Co is a B Corp whose tagline I s “Beyond Plastic” and whose goal is to eliminate plastic from its line of home supply products. I joined their VIP program back in 2020 and now get all of my kitchen and bath supplies from them. You subscribe to the products you like and they fill your cart monthly for your review and then send a box with a cute hand-written note of encouragement. They work with their suppliers, such as Method, to reduce plastic and I have seen this evolution of packaging over time. https://grove.co
🛍️ Shop Local - Remember when it was fun to go shopping? It still is! When I need something, I resist the urge to buy it now on Amazon, and shop local instead. Instead of buying the Amazon Recommends Yaktrak’s for snow hiking, I went to REI and *asked a person* what to buy. I ended up with a superior product. I wanted Mod-podge after crafting with friends on Valentine’s Day. I added it to my cart but then decided to walk 8 blocks up to Blick Art Supply and I had it faster than Buy it Now.
These changes may end up costing more money, and I know not everyone can afford it. If you are one of my tech working or any six-figure friends, I’m gonna guess you can probably afford to spend a little more. For me, it’s worth it to support our local economy and as it is turning out, it’s a lot more fun and fulfilling for me in the process.
I have a lot more to say and share and learn. There is still Alexa, and Prime Video to contend with, and I am still a Prime member today, but I will continue to work on this and share my journey for anyone who is interested in this journey.
Thanks for reading! 🙏🏻❤️
