Stoll's site, the Klein bottle hats and Mobius scarves! "Two manifolds for one low price". I'm after those for autumn.
Stores may have it, but have it locked up or behind the counter (or just not carry it at all) my (seattle) grocery store carries hand sanitizer, but not on the shelf. You have to find an employee (good luck...) and ask them to go get it from the back/wherever. Or order the same product on Amazon for same-day delivery for the same price or cheaper :-/
(*) Of course you pay for shipping via the purchase price but you do that even if you order individual items and also with Prime.
I recently spent a year in Shanghai, and when I would ask a friend where to go to buy something I needed, the response was always a confused "buy it online and have it delivered".
I don't care for that. I'd like to have things available in stores.
Perhaps that acquaintance was in a similar situation.
As a result, nearly all pharmacies here dropped the entire lines of making medication on-site and selling chemicals, because only the latter kept the former financially viable.
So, your only options left are either: a) buy from Amazon or eBay sellers that outright don't care about the German peculiarities or b) if you manage to qualify, buy from the usual selection of lab supply wholesalers. But something like "start a German NileRed channel", that's completely out of the question. The kind of stuff he buys, no way to get that without a commercial entity, and good luck getting that in place without at least a bachelor's degree in chemistry.
You can also just make most things yourself. It isn't cost effective for a commercial entity (due to wages for highly educated professionals) but for a hobbyist, who cares? That of course calls into question the bulk of the regulatory approach. When I can pull up a youtube video of someone making solid rocket fuel with a plastic jug and a phone charger what was the point of requiring all the paperwork?
If you're lucky the recommended videos will even have footage of someone getting arrested for misusing something substantially similar.
There's a reason why you can't get industrial strength cleaners in a Walmart - too many people would either seriously injure themselves because they don't know they actually need PPE or otherwise this stuff will break down their skin, because they mix it and make enough mustard gas to actually kill them, or because they break down their homes because guess what, a highly acidic cleaning agent and most kinds of stone don't mix.
Of course, yes, one can try to concentrate H2O2 but there's easier and less messy ways to off oneself than this.
TIL, didn't know that. Acetone is right next to peroxide in the local household items store (in the Netherlands) over here. But a few aisles over you can also find CBD oil and melatonin, heavy duty painkillers like diclofenac, etc.
> The kind of stuff he buys, no way to get that without a commercial entity, and good luck getting that in place without at least a bachelor's degree in chemistry.
NileRed has a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry with a minor in pharmacology.
It's easy to sneeze at "deficient competitors" as well, but the whole massive spend on infrastructure - warehouses, delivery vans, etc. is hard to replicate. In one sense, it's worth an antitrust look if that whole system essentially stiles competition
Strange in a way how saving 2 minutes is a differentiator online. Back in the brick-and-mortar days you'd spend 2 minutes at a stoplight on the way to the store without even thinking about it.
And ordering from catalogs? If I got the item in two weeks that seemed pretty fast.
He lives in Seattle.
It really feels like people's behaviors have been permanently changed for the worst, even if a "proper" competitor comes in.
I no longer have prime shipping, and seeing "shipping: $5" next to anything on Amazon definitely helps me to do at least cursory searches in local stores... would probably be a net benefit to society to outlaw Prime