Most of us do at least some (if not the majority of) our shopping online now, but there are things we give up for that convenience. You can’t actually hold the item in your hands to see if reality lives up to the product description, so we often rely on bot-infested or fake reviews. But if you consider where the item is manufactured to be an indication of the likely quality of the product, you might now have a solution, at least on Amazon: Cultivate is a free web browser extension specifically for Amazon shoppers that tells you where the product you’re eyeing was manufactured.
The extension shows the manufacturer location in an extra box below the price. In the case below, a Fossil leather wallet (the brand is from Texas) shows that the wallet was manufactured in China.
I’ve been using this extension for a couple of days to try it out while I write about early Black Friday deals, and I’ve found it useful: The extension also tells you if you have found the best price available for the product you’re looking at or if it’s available cheaper on another website or at a local store. It also applies automatic coupons for you.
However, it doesn’t come without its problems. When you’re on any other retailer’s website outside of Amazon, the extension has an annoying pop-up window on the top right corner of the page, letting you know you can activate cash-back rewards. The extension lets you can snooze the alert, but only for an hour at a time. If you primarily shop online on Amazon (or you don’t mind hitting the snooze button), that might not be a dealbreaker for you.
You can read more information about the extension in their FAQs.