Hunt For Local Substitutes

01 Nov 2022 - Tanmay Jha

One thing I struggled with was finding alternatives for a lot of my household goods. The consumer goods market here is significantly different from the United States. I would recommend at going to a supermarket and walking around to get a feel for local alternatives. While it can be quite uncomfortable not having your go-to household items available, remember that you won’t be doing as many household chores here. From cooking to cleaning, you can cheaply hire domestic help in India. I would recommend asking your maid/cook what materials they need - they will be more than happy to tell you. Sometimes they will even purchase and bring them as long as you pay them. Avoid the impulse to spend a lot of effort trying to find one-to-one substitutes like I did.

Now a word to the wise - return policies in India are nothing like the United States. Even when using Amazon, most items are not returnable and are replacement only (in case of damage/malfunction). Shop sparingly and try to buy high value items in person if possible.

Here are some local substitutes that were personally relevant to me -

  1. Lactaid - load up on these before coming back, especially the single use tablets that you can carry around. The best local alternative I found was Healthvit Lactaneed, typically available on Flipkart/Amazon/Bigbasket.

  2. Tylenol - Paracetamol

  3. Tums - Digene tablets

  4. Moisturizer - Vaseline and Nivea have good moisturizers. Cetaphil/Aveeno is also readily available although a little more expensive

  5. Body Wash - Dove

  6. Coffee - Slay has fairly good and inexpensive coffee beans. French Presses are quite cheap on Amazon. Blue Tokai is a more specialty provider if you are into that.

  7. Oat mik/almond milk are readily available in big cities like Bangalore. Just check BlinkIt/Big Basket and there will be plenty of options. If you are in a smaller city, you will typically find Soy milk at most supermarkets. I have seen Almond milk in supermarkets too, but that is rarer. Oat milk is best ordered online on Amazon or Flipkart in smaller cities

  8. Pajamas/sleepwear/exercise wear - Jockey is your best bet. They have plenty of tiny shops all over. Just search on Google Maps and you will find one within a couple of kilometers. Jockey’s website also has a return policy, but I have not tried returning anything myself so far so I can’t comment on it.

  9. Gym stuff - Decathlon is great. Lots of options, low prices and they even have a return policy. They also have an online store.

  10. Peripheral Office equipment - best to bring some stuff with you if possible, like docking stations/adapters/USB C hubs (anything that you use regularly). The options here are limited, not as good, and more expensive. In general electronics in India are more expensive than the US, and not as readily available -

    • Monitors are quite expensive here. For around 200 dollars(~16K INR), you will get a 27 inch 1080P monitor without an adjustable stand. In the US, 200 dollars would fetch you at least a 27 inch QHD monitor. While it may not be practical to bring a monitor with you, there is a little hack to know if you are using a M1 mac with a FHD or QHD monitor. Macbook computers with M1 chips tend to look terrible on any resolution less than 4K, but fortunately that is more a result of Apple being Apple and not providing the proper software HiDPI support to these monitors. You can use an open source software called BetterDisplay (formerly BetterDummy) to fix this.
    • CableCreation seems to have a good USB C hub

  11. Furniture shopping is best done in person. Customization is cheap in India, and even standard office furniture shops are willing to customize gas lifts and armrests.

    • If you want to shop online, Ikea has cheap home delivery (unlike the US). They also a decent return policy
    • For a good office chair, Featherlite is a great option