On November 10, 1999, I placed my first order on Amazon.com. I had a copy of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler shipped to my house overseas for some pleasure reading. In the past twenty years, Amazon.com has grown from an online bookseller into the World’s Grand Bazaar. On December 31st, I’m ending our two decade relationship.

Over the past twelve months, The Wall Street Journal has released the results of multiple investigations into Amazon, revealing an increasingly dark profile of the company. Amazon is both a retailer and a technology platform. They sell products directly to consumers and they connect buyers and third-party sellers. While you may “buy” something on Amazon, you may not be “buying” from Amazon. In fact, over half of the items on Amazon aren’t sold by Amazon at all, but by third-party sellers. The investigations show the implicit risks of buying from these third-party sellers.

• How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon (Dec. 17, 2018)
• Is It Really Five Stars? How to Spot Fake Amazon Reviews (Dec. 20, 2018)
• Don’t Just ‘Buy Now’! When Shopping on Amazon, You Need to Pay Attention (Mar. 26, 2019)
• Amazon Has Ceded Control of Its Site. The Result: Thousands of Banned, Unsafe or Mislabeled Products (Aug. 23, 2019)
• Amazon Sells Clothes From Factories Other Retailers Blacklist (Oct. 23, 2019)
• How Amazon Dodges Responsibility for Unsafe Products: The Case of the Hoverboard (Dec. 5, 2019)
• You Might Be Buying Trash on Amazon—Literally (Dec. 17, 2019

The collective weight of evidence has led me to conclude that Amazon is not a place where I feel comfortable, confident, or safe, shopping. I’ll use a patchwork of local and national retailers to get the things that I need. I’ll miss the ubiquity of Amazon and the convenience of single sourcing. The risk, however, is too great.

It’s now clear that the convenience of Amazon comes at a very high cost.