A PSA of sorts: 

Have you ever shopped on Amazon for something and found a listing for an item that meets your needs but the item may not be available on Prime or the pictures and description are rather basic? You may settle for something that isn’t quite what you wanted but because it’s available on Prime or has a more aesthetically pleasing listing, you go with your second choice.

Stop doing this. Spend a few extra minutes and to some more research on that item you liked more.

Chances are the company may actually be in the US (and who doesn’t like to support small US businesses.).

And chances are also pretty high that said company has lots of product offerings with great images and descriptions on their own website.

Small companies find it cost-prohibitive to list all their products on Amazon and because Amazon has several models for small businesses to list and sell — ranging from sending their products to Amazon for Amazon to then fulfill, to taking orders via Amazon and then fulfilling those order themselves — AND no mater what model a small business choses they pay pretty steep fees to Amazon for every single order placed. 

A great example of this is that I wanted to find a headband for my upcoming trip. I knew the style I wanted but finding it on Amazon proved difficult, until I did exactly what I suggested earlier: I spent a few extra minutes and found the manufacturer’s website for one item on Amazon that looked promising. When I hit up https://www.divebuddyoriginals.com/about I was pleased to find a huge range of items and picked out exactly what I wanted.

Going directly to the company was also cheaper for me than if I’d just picked up the offering from Amazon. I knew about this troubling business model that affects small business because I’d heard all about it from my parents. They too face the same issues with their business Alamarra.com and Amazon. And while I’m quite the Amazon junkie, I’m starting to Amazon more and more as a just a research tool and not as my go to for actually obtaining the things I need.