There is nothing "local" about etsy, and there has been for over ten years+. You can find all the same "handmade" products on AliExpress, and often Amazon.

Fine... Shopify then? There exist brick and mortar stores near me with Shopify sites.

Etsy is thoroughly fucked and full of mass-produced junk. "Local" could just mean buying from the nearest person who's reselling stuff from Ali Express.

And have you noticed what sellers on Amazon are doing? Foreign companies are setting up distribution in the US and registering their US companies with Amazon as "small businesses" and "minority-owned businesses", making those labels utterly useless.

A lot more power than what?

Like trusting the SEO from Googling "<Product> made near <my city>", or Amazon