@conscious.app: This online bookstore launched in 2020 to compete with Amazon, and has since sent over $51 million to local bookstores. It's called Bookshop.org, and it was started by a book publisher named Andy Hunter. He says people kept telling him all Americans care about is low prices and fast delivery. In February 2020, the site sold about $50,000 in books. When the pandemic closed bookstores, hundreds with no online store moved their sales onto Bookshop. By March it sold $50,000 a day, and by June, $1 million in a single day. Bookshop handles shipping and customer service, so stores don't have to pack or ship anything. If you buy through a store's page, that store keeps 30% of the cover price, which the company says is the full profit. If you don't pick a store, 10% goes into a pool split between independent bookstores every six months. It also pays creators more than Amazon does. Amazon pays 4.5% when someone links a book, and Bookshop pays 10%, plus another 10% into that pool for local stores. And its founding rules say it can never be sold to Amazon or any other major U.S. retailer. This year, Hunter expects about $80 million in sales, and it turns out there are alternatives to big companies like Amazon after all. I found Bookshop.org using the Conscious Spend app, it gives me better alternatives to unethical companies, shows me who owns a company and much more, so I can spend aligned with my values. You can download it using the link in our bio and join over 70,000 people checking how ethical their purchases really are.

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Monday 12 October 2026 01:43:42 GMT