Amazon.com

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Although beginning life as a marketplace for trading books, over the years Amazon has branched into everything from dishwasher tablets to SUVs. Their travel accessories section is a fantastic place to find pretty much everything you’ll ever need to take on a trip away with you, including backpacks, laptop bags, passport wallets, travel bottles and luggage locks.

 

Without doubt, one of the thing that draws me to using Amazon to find travel gear for my adventures abroad, be it a beach holiday or a hiking excursion, is the way in which items are displayed. There are a range of different categories, from Featured Deals to Best Sellers to Top Rated, allowing you to seamlessly scroll through offers and discover accessories that may never have occurred to you to buy. In particular, the “Recommended for You” section offers great deals based on your past search results and purchases, in order to personalise what you see.

 

Another feature of the website that I find infinitely resourceful is the questions and reviews section at the bottom of each product’s page. Customers can pose and answer queries that are not displayed in the descriptions, thus helping you decide what to buy. Reviews, meanwhile, are broken down into a star-based system, while you can also browse comments by selecting keywords to quickly find relevant feedback. The “Verified Purchase” label under people’s usernames informs you as to whether they have purchased the product themselves or not, therefore allowing for a more trustworthy review.

 

One downside to using Amazon to purchase travel gear is that they offer products from a range of different suppliers, each with varying degrees of reliability. While you can always select brands you trust, there are many items that come from unknown companies that have set up shop exclusively on Amazon, meaning they could be of questionable quality.

Pros
  • Wide range of different products arranged in easy to navigate categories
  • “Recommended For You” section is based on past searches and purchases
  • Questions and reviews for each product from verified customers
Cons
  • Offer products from little known companies with varying degrees of quality