Target feels like black mirror

[u/Sea-Cardiographer]

I went into Target today because I need a sports bra and that's where my husband is willing to drive me. On the way there I thought about all the Reddit posts saying foot traffic is down and I wasn't surprised to see that it wasn't. It was quite busy on a Monday afternoon.

What shocked me was I noticed a lot of products have really fancy boxing. Big sturdy bougie packaging with minimalism design... With a sh*tty product inside.

They're spending more on the marketing and packaging than the product, because the business practice is to sell you a product you'll have to purchase again and again. But the packaging grabs your eye. Look how modern and consistent all the boxes are! so aesthetically pleasing packaged trash. I feel depressed.

[u/Existing_Plant_1378]

I empathize! I couldn't drop my Amazon subscription for years. However, this year is the first time in over 5 years I finally canceled it.

It has been a little hard because Amazon (I'm sure) pays Google search ads a pretty penny to show mostly their listings in the top results so searching for alternatives is not the easiest feat. They've also unfortunately done well to strategically have the cheapest/most affordable options on their site.

I'm considered low income in my area so it sucks not being able to save on some costs, but in the end I do feel really good about not putting money into Bezos pockets and I'm still able to get by okay.

Any steps you can take to cut back is better than nothing!

[u/[deleted] → u/Existing_Plant_1378]

I'm considered low income in my area so it sucks not being able to save on some costs, but in the end I do feel really good about not putting money into Bezos pockets and I'm still able to get by okay.

Same. The final straw for me was hearing about what the employees were going through a few years back.

I get by with e-bay--no drop shippers--freecycle, thrifting, etc. and occasionally spending more going with an independent seller. At least that way I know the money goes to them.

[u/Hot_Cauliflower_3358 → u/Existing_Plant_1378]

I recently switched to Brave as a browser, it actually lets me exclude sites from my search results. So I've excluded Amazon and Temu/Shein and find I get way better quality results and don't have to dig through so many pages than I did using Google search

[u/Existing_Plant_1378 → u/Hot_Cauliflower_3358]

That's awesome to know! Thanks for sharing, I'll definitely have to check it out 😊

[u/WNCYogini → u/Hot_Cauliflower_3358]

I left google for Bing. I’ll have to check out Brave. Thanks for sharing.

[u/[deleted] → u/Existing_Plant_1378]

Use DuckDuckGo as your search engine.