CloseBuy: The Browser Extension that Helps You Shop Local & Skip Amazon

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo

By Jazz Sahota

If you’re like nearly half of Americans, you probably start your search for an item on Amazon. And maybe over the past year, you might have noticed you were spending a bit more on Amazon – since businesses were closed and we all had to shop online and, let’s face it, Amazon is super convenient. That was definitely me, and I felt really shitty about that.

Finding what you need at a small business ends up being a friction filled process. If you don’t know a store already, tracking down a store (via Google or Yelp) and then digging through their website trying to find what you’re looking for is a broken process. Small shops aren’t set up for discoverability online.

That was why we built CloseBuy. It’s a tool to help us, and I hope others, rely a little less on Amazon and try to make better choices about how they want to spend their money. CloseBuy is a free browser extension that lets you know if the things you’re shopping for on Amazon are available at a small business. We show you things from small businesses around the U.S., with the option to filter and see stores near you. Look how easy it is:

A lot of businesses have websites, or they hurried to build an e-commerce website once the pandemic hit. Platforms like Shopify make it relatively easy for merchants to pick a template, add in their inventory, and launch a website. But just because there’s a website out there, it doesn’t mean we’ll find that store or see all the great things they have available. There’s just way too much information out there on the internet.

What we’ve built at CloseBuy is a way for these small businesses to piggyback off the reach and scale of Amazon, without needing to spend tons of money on marketing. Everyone knows what Amazon is, most people start their search for products there, why not take advantage of that fact and show shoppers things from small and local businesses instead?

There are a lot of reasons to shop at small businesses – they give back to their communities, they have smaller carbon footprints, you get better service and higher quality items, to name a few. CloseBuy is an easy way to see if small businesses have what you’re looking for in stock.

What do you have to lose by downloading CloseBuy and seeing what small businesses have to offer? You might be surprised at what you discover.

Jazz Sahota is co-founder of CloseBuy. CloseBuy is a browser extension that lets you know if the items you’re shopping for on Amazon are available at a small or local business. Jazz is passionate about shopping small and wants to make it easy for everyone to join her on this mission. Learn more about CloseBuy and the merchants they help support and follow CloseBuy on social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.