Shopping apps, reviewed
Shopping apps want a permanent place on your home screen and as much purchase history as they can gather. These reviews look at price transparency, dark patterns in checkout and notifications, and what each retailer does with your browsing and order data.
AliExpress
Factory-direct prices from China, if you can wait for shipping and shop with a little skepticism.
Amazon Shopping
The everything store in your pocket — unmatched convenience, engineered to keep you buying, and short on tools that would serve you over Amazon.
eBay: Shop & sell online
The internet's original auction house, now mostly a fixed-price marketplace with serious buyer protection.
Etsy: Shop & Gift with Style
The marketplace for handmade and vintage goods, still a pleasure for buyers even as sellers and purists grumble.
Mercari: Buy and Sell App
The lowest-effort way to sell household stuff, if you can keep up with the shifting fees.
SHEIN-Shopping Online
Fast fashion at algorithmic speed: enormous choice, tiny prices, and baggage worth weighing before checkout.
Temu: Shop Like a Billionaire
Rock-bottom prices from PDD Holdings, wrapped in the most aggressive engagement machinery in shopping apps.
Too Good To Go: End Food Waste
Cheap surprise bags of surplus food, with the honest catch that you take what you get.