Unfortunately, Amazon has made its way into all aspects of our life. It's not just where we shop, it's where we store our wishlists so people have ideas of what to get for us when our birthdays come along. You can note on your Amazon wishlist that you don't need this exact item and encourage people to make their actual purchases elsewhere, but the chances they'll actually do that are slim.
We also have Amazon Prime, Amazon Music and an Echo.
That's a lot of stuff to quit. I'm going to take this a bit at a time, starting with no longer buying gifts from Amazon's website.
A few weeks ago was my nephew, The Gamer's, ninth birthday (son of my eldest sister, The Excited One). My neice, The Wolfling, daughter of The Excited One, turned seven shortly after. So I wanted to get them some presents the old fashioned way. I checked their Amazon wishlists for inspiration (yes, using Amazon to quit Amazon). The Gamer wanted books 10, 11 and 12 from the How To Train Your Dragon series. For The Wolfing I noted a sew-your-own-unicorn-cushion kit. They used to sell lots of things like that in various shops. I expected to find something similar in the high street fairly easily.
So one Friday I set out to buy presents in person from actual shops.
First I went into Waterstones for How to Train Your Dragon but they only had books 1-9 in stock (I was looking for books 10-12). They offered to order them in for me, but it wouldn't have come in time (this is my fault for not going shopping until 2 days before The Gamer's birthday).
Next I tried WH Smith. They had book 12, which I bought, but not the others. They confirmed that they do carry them all, so maybe if I happen upon another WH Smiths it might be worth checking there. They didn't have any kids' maker kits of any kind, which was disappointing. They would have a few years ago.
I tried in The Works, where I did find a handbag for The Wolfing - one with a picture (of a unicorn in front of a castle) for her to colour in and some pens. But I couldn't find any kids' sewing kits or anything like that. And while they sell books, they didn't have How To Train Your Dragon.
Finally I tried B&M for some craft kits but while they do sell kids' art supplies, I didn't find any 'make-you-own' style kits. I was tired at this point so I went home.
I looked online and found I could click 'n' collect the books I wanted from Waterstones at The Trafford Centre on the way to my parents' house on Sunday, which is The Gamer's birthday.
As for The Wolfing, I had another couple of weeks to go before her birthday so figured I could try a few more places and if no luck I could choose a different idea.
So Sunday came along and, en route to my parents' house, I was just parking at my Trafford Centre detour when I realised that on Sundays the Traff doesn't open until noon (it was 10.30 - I was due to arrive at my parents' for 11am). Luckily, we weren't expected to arrive at The Excited One's house for the party until 3pm so I was able to go to my parents and drive out to collect the books at noon. Another thing that wouldn't have been a problem if I'd planned better. The books I wanted were in stock in that branch when I ordered so they'd been able to get my parcel ready within 2 hours (which is why I ordered from that particular branch) and I was in the shop for 2 minutes to collect it.
On the Monday I ventured to The Range. It's a 20 minute walk from my house, but not really designed for people to arrive on foot (which I did anyway without too much trouble). There I found a pretty big selection of kids' maker kits; I struggled to decide what to get. I settled on an animal sewing kit - 6 different little stuffed animals to make. I thought about getting an animals cross stitch kit as well (because none of these things are very expensive) but decided instead I'd look for a book about how awesome girls are when next in town.
I ventured back into Waterstones looking for a non-fiction book about inspirational women, or something similar, but I couldn't see one I liked. Instead I bought a fiction book, Evie and the Animals, which is about a girl named Evie who can talk to animals (and has to be strong and proud of who she is to win the story, according to the blurb). I figured this was more along the theme of her other presents anyways.
I'd love to write about how this shopping experience was way better than buying everything online from a single conglomerate but honestly, it took days to get everything together. I had to go into a lot of shops, only to find they didn't have what I was looking for. It was hard work. With a bit more practice shopping this way I think I could find things more easily and I could easily have click 'n' collected from my local store, to collect on a day I'd be in the vicinity of the shop anyway, if I'd started my efforts a few days earlier. It wasn't easy but it was doable. So I'm going to keep doing it because the effort it takes to support smaller businesses over Amazon is a sacrifice worth making to make the world a better place.
