I do the same, however, #Amazon is going down the drain, too being "enshittified" with low-value Chinese products, in contrast to #Temu at rather Western price tags.
What is still useful are the user evaluations.
After reading them, I use #eBay and price-search engines to find these products at about the same or even a lesser price.
The only real exception being when I do need something "tomorrow."
Also, some chain-stores will offer the same price as Amazon, etc.
All the decent DIY / car accessories stores are gone in my region, the only one left is Halfords which has been mostly enshittified (and real life places rarely have any stock these days compared to Amazon or EBay). I did find a decent online tool store from SE England where you can even speak to real humans on the phone and they deliver on the promised dates, but they charge quite a price premium for this..
This is what happens when a monopolist has won.
If we still want real advice from the store, we must be willing to pay for it.
Even if AI agents are giving the advice, serverfarm maintenance costs a lot.
I try to order at those stores if I need the advice or am a regular, as long as the price premium is reasonable.
Also my experience of 1980s/90s/00s shopping was if you did get a defective or sub-par product, it wasn't always easy to return it without the shop staff quibbling (and local businesses were slow to sort out problems), compared to Amazon where (at least in UK) they just refund you with few questions asked
It also depends on the size of your community, OFC.
(I actually do have a pair that I bought locally, but havec sincecl switched to HOKA, not laceless, as my experience is that the elastic band loosens over time and even ripps after a couple of months, depending on the frequency of use.)
If the price is all right, I try to order through a local store, to fight the Amazon monopol, or at least through smaller online stores, frequently on eBay or through a price-search.
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