Did you buy it on Amazon? Can I buy this on Amazon? Can I find this on Amazon?

One of my many hobbies is archery, and at the range, there's this new guy who asked me if he could find some archery stuff on Amazon, because apparently that's the only place he buys stuff from.

One week he's shooting this recurve bow that seems improperly sized for him, then he comes back another week with a compound bow and complains about the draw length being too short. I tell this guy to go to an actual archery website to buy decent equipment since the combined cost of all his current shitty equipment will cover a decent beginner recurve and some additional accessories. He tells me, '"if I can shoot on shitty bows then I can shoot on anything", after that, an arrow bounces off the target and we found out the arrow tip is poorly glued on.

Any of the numerous hobbies I take part in, you don't buy this shit on Amazon. Machined pens, specific airsoft components, balisongs, rock climbing equipment, scuba diving gear, even little fucking resistors on electrical equipment you don't buy on Amazon.

The combination of the easy one place shop for everything and ignorant people will kill people one of these days.

Key takeaway is that I ask all of you in any hobby groups to direct newbies towards places where they can get started in a way where they're not getting garbage equipment that will end up costing them or hurting themselves (and others)

I want to emphasize that Amazon in it's entirety is not malicious (well it is, but not for my point in this discussion), but the practice of blindly buying from Amazon is the bad practice. Because more knowledgeable hobbyists and professionals will be able to find specific components from brands they want that might be on Amazon, ebay, fb marketplace, etc. However, you can't just look up "compound bow" and expect the first one with 5 star bot reviews to be serious equipment.

By now I have a hard time to differentiate between Amazon and Ali Express or temu or whatever. It's full of cheap shit.

Amazon is fine. Just don't buy the garbage. I really find it amusing that this is a foreign concept to folks.

PEBKAC.

That maliciousness crept into Amazon when they added 3rd party sellers and making them close to indistinguishable from reliable vendors.

Pages and pages of identical junk. And for anything of actual value (electronics etc) you also run the risk of getting an open box return yet you pay full price. At this point it's a useless store unless you're buying some kind of commodity item.

I've only use it to check the base price of anything, then look for it in real shops. I got burned by non matching item once. I vowed to never buy online, unless I can't source it from local market and needing it.

PEBKAC

Is that one of the no name brands on Amazon?

Plus, there’s this thing called customer service. Newbies need guidance, and a competent salesperson can give valuable, personalized advice. Websites can’t.

Problem Between Keyboard and Chair.

Amazon used to sell genuine and quality stuff. Those days are long gone, and I specifically don't trust marketplace sellers.

I get a bunch of refunds for lower quality stuff just by leaving a bad review (even 3-4 stars) with pictures. Happened like 5+ times at this point.

You just need to determine if you’re ok with lower quality. I do woodworking and there are some things I want to have high quality and order items where I don’t care.

Even then, for a lot of hobbies, I'll buy from Banggood before Amazon.

Worst part is the box it shows up in usually.

It's sad because that's an amazing name for drop shipped tech goods but I would've totally missed it if I just scrolled past it on Amazon.

You can actually buy some electronic components on AliExpress for a good price. Sure, they might not be the best of the best, but they have worked well for me so far.

As long as you look at the listings properly and avoid some of the more dubious ones you should be fine.