Confessions of an Amazon Junkie: A Review of Vine.com

Every few weeks, my shopping list gets cluttered with cleaning supplies, shampoo, and other necessary staples. And even though I’m a supporter of local businesses in both my work and professional lives, I find my mouse creeping towards my Amazon bookmark.

As much as I believe main street businesses are a fundamental driver of our well-being, and that there’s nothing better than talking to the farmer who grew the most delicious strawberries I’ve ever had (moss berries at the Occidental farmers market on a warm Friday afternoon last June), I can’t quite break free of my Amazon addiction.

So needless to say, I was pretty excited to hear about Vine.com, an online shopping site for green products. My favorite part of Vine.com was the functionality for sorting and filtering. You can choose to filter products by B Corp, Fair Trade, Made in the USA, and cruelty-free at the site level, and then within categories by specific certifications and even by values. This degree of customization bodes well for consumers who are interested in a wide variety of sustainability issues. I was also excited to see that you can opt to look only at products made within 100 miles of your selected city. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite tell if they are also warehoused and shipped from within 100 miles, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Vine.com isn’t linked to your Amazon account, so unless you already have an account on one of the sister sites, you have to re-register. More importantly though, it means you don’t have access to Prime membership benefits like free shipping (though Vine.com offers free 2-day delivery on orders over $49).

The site also uses environmentally responsible shipping materials where possible, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spring for the $40 natural shampoo to see whether it lives up to the promise. Indeed, the pricing overall seems to be on the high end, but they are clearly making an effort to include lower priced options as well.

And that kind of summarizes how I feel about Vine.com—it’s a step in the right direction for green consumers who value convenience and sustainability. I look forward to seeing the site grow richer with more product reviews from users, and as the Qidisi team continues to add more products at competitive prices. I’m hopeful it will help me beat my Amazon addiction once and for all!

Image Credit: Vine.com