Whether or not you’re a fan of New Year’s resolutions, the first month of the year always offers a chance to turn over a new leaf in one’s life. And this year, a good resolution to have is to cancel Amazon Prime.
Yes. It’s a task that is long overdue for several reasons.
Why Your Cancellation of Amazon Prime Is Long Overdue
1. Amazon is exploitative to its employees, from its drivers to its factory workers
Stories about how Amazon has exploited its workers are legion, but here are a few quick examples:
- Migrant workers in Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia exploited (2023): https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/saudi-arabia-migrants-workers-who-toiled-in-amazon-warehouses-were-deceived-and-exploited/
- Amazon Unionbusting in the UK (2024): https://remake.world/stories/amazon-mistreating-workers/
- Amazon Delivery Driver and Warehouse Worker Strike Efforts In The US (2024): https://labornotes.org/2024/12/amazon-workers-launch-largest-strike-yet-it-doesnt-feel-job-should-be-legal
- Amazon workers In India exploited during a heat wave (2024): https://www.the-independent.com/asia/india/amazon-warehouse-india-heatwave-no-breaks-b2559976.html
After finding out how workers at the Seattle-based company are taken advantage of, it becomes much harder to give them your business with a clear conscience – especially when Amazon is only one retailer in a world of over 8 billion people.
photo © Manic Metallic 2025
2. Many clothes on Amazon’s website are from seemingly random brands with scarce information available online about them
When you click on the ‘clothing’ section of Amazon Prime and scroll for any length of time, you’re greeted with a sea of clothing brands that you’ve never heard of with low prices that should not exist – and would not if workers were being paid fairly.
For those who haven’t given it any thought, here is a quick way to tell if a company is exploiting its employees: it is next to impossible for workers to be paid a fair wage if a new shirt is $10 or a new pair of jeans is $15
On top of these clothing brands being vague, they are bland with nothing to offer in the way of compelling design. Surely you’d want to purchase something interesting with a meaningful design impetus with your hard-earned money.
If the vague brands and bland design aren’t enough to dissuade you from shopping there, Amazon has now created “Amazon Haul”, the company’s bid to compete with fast fashion giants Shein and Temu. We don’t need more low-quality clothing filling up landfills and bringing us one step closer to climate disaster.
photo © Manic Metallic 2025
Now, in terms of the fashion that it offers, Amazon has no real identity as to what it stands for.
While it has rolled out Amazon Haul, it has also had its Amazon Luxury Stores initiative around for a few years. Amazon Luxury Stores carries luxury and vintage retailers such as What Goes Around Comes Around and Hypebeast’s HBX as well as high fashion designers such as Elie Saab, Joseph Altuzarra, and Rodarte.
Other brands and designers available on Amazon independent of the Luxury Stores initiative include names such as Sandy Liang, Norma Kamali, Ulla Johnson, and LoveShackFancy, just to name a few.
It doesn’t exactly help you to make a splash in the fashion space when you have pricey, quality brands like Elie Saab and Rodarte right alongside clothing that would be hard-pressed to last a single year without damage.
With this in mind, Amazon cannot be taken seriously as a fashion industry mover-and-shaker.
What, then, gets most people to shop at Amazon for clothing (or anything else, really)?
The convenience factor is what gets people to shop the most with the online retailer, not the clothes themselves. You could get many of the clothes anywhere else without having to add to the pockets of [Amazon Executive Chairman] Jeff Bezos.
It’s hard to say that cost is the biggest factor when one could go in person to get items at retailers that offer reasonable prices. The most we could say here is that maybe people need an awareness of how they could save money while shopping somewhere other than Amazon (more on that later).
What Amazon offers that these other retailers do not is the convenience of clicking a button and having one’s desired item in 1-2 days – all without having to leave the house. And when you combine that level of convenience with the relatively low financial cost to consumers, most people will choose it over most anywhere else for shopping purposes.
But this high convenience level and these financial price advantages do not come without consequence. Amazon’s lack of care for its workers or the environment should be enough of a reason to stop shopping there and find alternatives. If that’s not of concern to you, the company recently scaled back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies due to broad public and legal pushback from conservatives against these guidelines. If you take all three of these points into consideration, this is not a company of which to remain a customer – especially going into a second Trump administration with a president who has shown hostility to the issues of sustainability, diversity, and workers’ rights.
Here’s What To Do Instead When Shopping For Fashion
- Shop directly from the retailers themselves
If you see a fashion retailer selling on Amazon, chances are that they have a way to shop with them off of Amazon’s website. Do an online search and find out what that way is.
- Shop small, independent fashion businesses
In a fashion world where just twenty companies receive almost 100% of the profits, independent fashion brands could really use the support of the public. These talented folks are oftentimes more innovative and willing to take creative risks, so you’re usually going to be purchasing a more interesting design. Also, with indie designers, you’re less likely to run into someone wearing the same thing as you, which is a huge plus for those who prefer to march to the beat of their own drum.
- Buy less, and buy quality when you do choose to buy
Admit to yourself, how many times do you actually need to purchase an item when you go shopping? For many of us, we shop for emotional reasons (joy, depression, etc.). While there is nothing wrong with making purchases simply because you want to do it, it would be helpful to both the environment and garment workers if you scaled back that tendency.
This is different than the trendy take of telling everyone to not shop at all. That take sounds nice, but people like shopping. If we could channel that energy into purchasing items when we need them – and into purchasing quality, long-lasting items when we do decide to buy – it would go a long way toward breaking the cycle of overconsumption.
- Buy secondhand (thrifting and vintage)
Consider whether or not you need to purchase a new item in the first place when a ‘new-to-you’ item would be just as great.
Shopping secondhand used to get a bad rap, but it has become much more widely acceptable, with numerous in-person, online, and brand-owned options to do so bursting into society every day. Thrifting and vintage shopping are two popular ways to buy secondhand.
Something else to consider: the quality of vintage clothing is arguably stronger than clothing made in recent times. There are reasons for that, but that’s a story for another day.
The last thought that you might be left with is this: how do I get ideas for where to shop? Seven ways are listed below:
How To Get Ideas For Where To Shop:
- Reach out to your friends and see where they shop
You and your friends all have one thing in common: you wear clothes. Ask them where they prefer to do their shopping. Even if your aesthetic doesn’t match theirs, they might still know about places that you could peruse.
- Follow Substack newsletters that discuss fashion, and get involved in the ‘chats’ & ‘comments’ sections
If there is one thing that Substack has become a great resource for, it is getting ideas for different fashion brands and stores from which to purchase.
Find yourself some good Substack fashion newsletters to subscribe to (like ours!), and you’ll find yourself overflowing with new places to shop the next time you’re in the market for something new. Hint: read the comment sections and join the chats – the people in them are more than willing to offer advice!
- Walk around your city or town, and browse what the retailers in your area have to offer
Sometimes, the best way to find out about new brands and designers is to take a walk around your city or town to see what is available. There’s nothing like walking past a new boutique that you’ve never been into before, making friendly conversation with the salespeople, and walking out with a dress or pants that you have been searching for forever.
- Read fashion and culture publications
There is only so far that one can go with learning about fashion, designs, and brands from influencers – and it can be time-consuming looking all of the information up on your own. This is where fashion and culture publications come in.
Find yourself about 2-4 publications to read whose voices you trust, and subscribe to them. Covering fashion is what fashion professionals do for a living, and they’re going to have a lot of nuggets that you wouldn’t have expected. (We happen to have a subscription available to our website that includes all of our longform journalism; we encourage you to subscribe!)
- Subscribe to your local newspaper
We are in an era where many people are deciding to roll back their Internet consumption – particularly on social media. Print media, as a result, is seeing a slow resurgence.
We are also in an era where good journalism needs your support more than ever. If you have a good newspaper in your city or town, subscribe to them! Many times, these outlets will interview local business owners; this could help immensely with finding new fashion businesses and designers to support.
- Listen to fashion podcasts
Fashion podcasts are great: you can listen to them while doing something else like dishes, laundry, driving, or taking public transit. Why not listen to a few episodes of some in which they’re talking about designers or retail locations?
- Reddit and Discord are great for idea-sharing
Forums like Reddit and chat spaces like Discord are excellent at fostering conversations about various topics between people with common interests.
A quick search on either is bound to find spaces where you can jump in and ask questions about fashion designers and brands.
Life outside of an Amazon Prime subscription can be confusing at first. Where will you get a pair of shoes to go to that wedding next month that need to be a certain style? Where will you buy that dress to wear to the dinner in a few days that you need to arrive as soon as possible?
But the fact that you’ve canceled your subscription is a great first step to finding ways to get great clothing in a way that supports both the environment and workers while getting you better quality and more interesting designs.
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