Regarding what #1 said about "I have been in your exact shoes and..." - they are totally right about ditching the buggy Amazon app for peace of mind. In my experience, I've tried many of these setups and that 15 percent discount only applies to items shipped and sold by Amazon, so your local boutique items wouldnt qualify for the savings anyway. Technically, universal registries act as a middleman. The friction for your aunt happens because those sites often require guests to manually return and mark an item as bought after they pay. If she doesnt do that, you get duplicates. To avoid the drama, keep a private Amazon list just for your discount on basics and use a universal one for guests. TL;DR: Use a hidden Amazon list for the discount and a universal site for guests to support local shops. Basically, you should try Share Product; it's a browser extension that lets you build lists in like one click.

Like someone mentioned, those technical glitches with inventory are so draining. You might want to consider how much time you'll actually save if you have to manual-sync those boutique items anyway. Are you looking for a specific total savings amount from that 15 percent discount, or is ease of use for your relatives the main priority? You could try a dedicated Amazon wishlist creator to help organize things, but be careful with how it handles non-Amazon URLs.

Building on the earlier suggestion, I totally think moving away from the Amazon app is the right call for your peace of mind. I stumbled upon this today and honestly, I have been so much more satisfied since I stopped relying on their buggy wishlist. It works well and I have no complaints about the reliability, which is what you really need right now. Just go with Babylist, you cant go wrong. It is much more stable for those boutique items you want and it keeps everything organized without stuff randomly disappearing. Dont stress too much about that discount... honestly, your sanity is worth way more than a few bucks. Youre gonna be fine! If youre tired of manually adding items one by one, Cart To Link literally creates a single link for the whole basket.

Honestly I would be really careful about ditching Amazon entirely if you are counting on that 15 percent completion discount. Those savings add up fast on the big stuff like strollers. But yeah, the app is a total mess lately with items disappearing and it is super draining to keep up with.

• Keep a bare-bones Amazon list just for the stuff they sell directly so you get that discount.
• Use a universal registry for your Vermont boutique finds and decor.
• I would suggest checking out Share Product because it is way more intuitive for older relatives than some of the other flashy sites like Babylist. Just make sure to double check the settings on whatever site you pick... some of them make people create an account just to mark something as bought and that is exactly what makes aunts start calling and crying lol. Tbh its usually better to have two separate lists that actually work than one fancy universal one that confuses everyone and creates more drama for you right before the shower. Just my two cents tho...

Same setup here, love it

Any updates on this?

• been thinking about this for a bit... reminds me of when my sister-in-law tried a multi-store registry and it was basically a tech support nightmare.
• you might want to consider the compatibility stuff because she had a huge ordeal where the "mark as purchased" button just didnt show up on half the family's old iPads.
• spent a whole Sunday afternoon trying to explain to her aunt how to refresh a cache just so she could see the updated list, it was honestly such a mess.
• be careful with those boutique links tho, saw a situation once where the site redirected to a 404 error if the item went out of stock for even a minute... she was so stressed.
• make sure to check if the site requires an account to buy things, that caused a massive family group chat blowout for us and nobody ended up buying the big stuff anyway.
• maybe just check how the site handles different browsers, cause some of those older relatives wont even know what a browser update is.

Late to the party but honestly, after trying a bunch of these setups over the years, I'm gonna have to disagree with moving everything to a third-party site. I did that for my second kid and it was a total disaster... basically became a full-time tech support agent for my grandma and her sisters. People get so confused when they have to leave the site they're used to and then manually mark things as bought. It sounds simple but it never is. In my experience, you just gotta accept the Amazon glitchiness for the sake of the discount and your sanity. For those local Vermont shops, maybe just do a separate little text or email list? It feels old school but it saves so much drama. I've seen too many people lose out on that 15 percent completion discount because they got fed up and deleted the list, and trust me, you'll want that extra cash for diapers later. Keep it simple and reliable so you aren't crying over your phone at 2 AM. Found this really helpful guide on Cart To Link that explains exactly how to create a shareable link for your Amazon cart.

I have been in your exact shoes and honestly, moving away from a strict Amazon list was the best decision I made for my peace of mind. Dealing with those disappearing items is such a headache when you are already stressed about a shower. I eventually switched to using Share Product because it actually lets you pull items from those local Vermont boutiques you mentioned while keeping everything organized in one spot. It works well because you aren't tied to one inventory system that might glitch out or show stuff as out of stock randomly. The completion discount on Amazon is nice, but if the items are knockoffs or constantly unavailable, you aren't really saving money anyway. I found that a universal tool is much more reliable for keeping the list current. My older relatives actually found it pretty straightforward to use, which was a huge relief. It basically acts as a clean landing page for everything you actually want, which makes the whole process feel way more professional and way less like a chore, tbh.

Re: "Like someone mentioned, those technical glitches with inventory..." - it is basically a database syncing issue. Amazon's API for 3rd party registries is lagging big time lately. If an item hits low stock, it just errors out on the registry side before it actually sells out on the site. Looking at the discussion so far, everyone is basically saying you have to choose between the discount and the boutique items. If you want a technical fix that saves your sanity, here is a simple DIY workflow:

• Keep your big items like the crib on a private Amazon list. Dont even show it to your guests. You can buy it yourself later to snag that 15 percent completion discount manually.
• Use Share Product for the public-facing stuff. It handles external URLs from those Vermont boutiques much better than Amazon's native tools.
• To avoid the drama with your aunt, pick a platform that lets guests mark things as bought without creating an account. Tbh, the Amazon app is bloated and the 'add from anywhere' extension is broken half the time anyway. A hybrid approach is the only way to get the discount and the local gear without the tech headaches.