I haven't had any issues buying from web shops anywhere in the EU and with physical stores the owner is (if nothing else) invested in the property and will probably sell you decent stuff. Never had a used product sold as new, untrustworthy reviews (beyond that most individual reviews are not representative of the true population), or other such problems that I read about Amazon on HN. Of course, you need to know what features or specs you're looking for or you'll still get, say, painfully slow sd cards for nearly the same price as the faster ones, but that's not necessarily a quality issue: the product doesn't falsely advertise being fast.
Living in Germany now, Amazon is a very dominant player here and, not speaking German that well yet, it's a bit harder to find other shops that sell a random item. Amazon is an easy first stop but they make it super hard to do comparative research (sort by price does not sort by price, no useful filters, inconsistent or missing product info, etc.) and so I usually do end up putting it in google/ddg instead and finding an alternative store to buy from, or get something second-hand (within reason). Or just go over to one of three computer stores that are within walking distance from home or work. That's how I'd find reliable dongles/hubs these days...