I want to send something to a friend in Australia. I am in the US. I do not want to buy in the US and ship internationally. I want to buy something from an Australian merchant and ship locally in Australia.
Every time I try though I keep getting US merchants and if I try to find an Australian merchant it is hard to find what I am looking for (not to mention I am unsure about an international payment…will my CC work?).
Does anyone here know the best way to go about this?
Go to the local amazon site, in this case amazon.com.au. Sign in with your regular US amazon account, you do not need to set up a new account - in fact it won’t let you. Set up the Australian delivery address, and select it on the front page.
Your usual payment methods will be available, but you will not have Prime privileges in the new country unless you sign up for Prime in that country while logged into that country’s site. But I seem to remember it gives you the free trial of Prime for the new country.
I think that on checkout it gives you the option to convert local currency charges to US$ at a specified “Amazon exchange rate”. Don’t do this. You will get a better rate by just letting the charge go through to your US card in AUD and getting the forex rate used by Visa or Mastercard. Credit card companies give favorable forex rates because they want you using your card as much as possible.
Technically, yes. (I’ve never tried it.) You will need to log into that country’s amazon site (e…g… Amazon.ca for Canada). Your login should work regardless of country. You will need to use a VPN service to do this else it will redirect you back to the U.S. site
ISTR ordering something from Amazon UK a few years ago, the site prompted me to switch to the US version but I said I really wanted the UK one so they let me stay. I know it was a non-US Amazon, just can’t remember which country.
Or Amazon Music; I recently found something on Amazon UK that’s not available in the US and it wouldn’t let me order for download. So I had to settle for an inferior rough equivalent that is available in the US.
I’ve also ordered stuff from Amazon UK, but for delivery to me in the US. At one point, when I was actually purchasing Blu-rays of movies and TV shows, I found sometimes they were cheaper on the UK site and I don’t believe that Blu-Rays are locked by country. Similarly, sometimes, a book would be available on the UK site but not the American site.
I have a friend that I buy for in Australia all the time and you are correct. It’s one account for me but two websites. I love it because I like to buy them gift cards.