The alternative is track down the original, individual vendor and deal with their custom sign up, shopping cart, shipping, and support on their site. Repeat with each different vendor for next purchase.
As much as Amazon hates its customers and vendors, it's got a consistent experience.
While actually doing the signup is a pain, I just use a “hide-my-email” address and cut it off after I receive the item. And I’d personally prefer to enter my credit card info every time. I once accidentally clicked on the “Yes, sign me up for Amazon Prime today, even though I’ve turned it down literally hundreds of times,” button and they immediately charged my credit card without even an “Are you sure?” Alert. Luckily I was able to cancel and get it refunded relatively easily (after 5 screens of “are you sure?” And “do you want to just pause it for a few months?”).
Almost everyone, in the UK at least, has a largely seamless experience with PayPal, Google Pay or Apple Pay these days. The shipping address gets auto-completed by interfacing with the payment processor and there's no account sign-up.
And since most of them actually outsource their websites to shopify or whoever, the user experience is basically as consistent as Amazon.
I try to patronize the original vendors. The large markets like Walmart and Target squeeze their suppliers hard to widen their margins. So if everything's about equal, I'd rather go to the source, especially if it's a mom and pop so they get a larger cut of the same money.
Cannot say enough bad things about OnTrac. They routinely throw packages at the end of our driveway instead of leaving at the porch like everyone else does.
The end of the (long) driveway is treed so sometimes we are literally hunting in the woods for our package after an OnTrac delivery.
