Amazon gives non-Prime members free shipping at $35 or more of eligible items. Instead of simply letting users get the product with free shipping, they’ve added a discount that prices it exactly one cent below the $35 limit, while only subsidizing the price with $3.38, which is about half of what they’ll then charge you for shipping.
Generally, I believe the convenience of cheap shit delivered to your door comes at the invisible cost of exploitative labor practices and/or excessive consumerism by the means of low quality crap that will need to be replaced regularly or through “buy more and save” deals. If you want to avoid supporting that, you’re probably going to have to spend a few extra bucks buying from a smaller business or buying secondhand.
Convenience isn’t free and if we want to reduce our dependence on harmful institutions we’re going to have to make some sacrifices.
I do this. But, I’m also lucky to live in a city with second hand shit everywhere. Not everyone lives in a city.
But, google shopping will tell you an alternative store to buy most things online. And compare costs for you. This gets tricky if you’re also trying to cut google out of your life though. There really is no ethical consumption under capitalism ¯\_(ツ)_/¯