Ordering from Amazon

[HoboSam]

Hi
I'm going to be ordering some books from amazon.
Can anyone tell me the shipping cost of 10 books at with a total weight of 3.7 kg?

Thanks!

[Gambit]

You can always register, add the books to your cart and checkout. It will then calculate the shipping charges and import tax and give you a total for the order in rands.

[Zenbaas]

Can we now order from Amazon directly again.....?

[Alan]

Hi
I'm going to be ordering some books from amazon.
Can anyone tell me the shipping cost of 10 books at with a total weight of 3.7 kg?

Thanks!

You can order from Amazon through Take2

[diabolus]

Can we now order from Amazon directly again.....?

From amazon.co.uk yes. Not sure about amazon.com

As to the OP, i recently ordered about 9 books [hard covers and soft covers] from amazon.co.uk, Postage & Packing: £25.23 . It's sent via DHL.

Not sure what the actual weight is.

[gdiza]

I just use Ebay.co.uk :D

[Gambit]

I order stuff from amazon.com all the time. They have a new amazon export service that works really well. They calculate the import fees and you prepay it so your package sails through customs. My orders usually only take about 3-4 days to be delivered by UPS or Fedex. Check http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=230659011 you will see in the bottom left corner that south africa is listed. I have bought a few items for half the price available in SA even though the cost includes express courier shipping and import charges.

[Crusader]

For books you could also try www.bookdepository.com. They have free international shipping. I haven't used them myself, but have heard quite a few good comments about them.

[Paul_S]

You can order from Amazon through Take2

That would be great if Take2 had even 10% of the products that Amazon have listed on their site.
I need to get some special sunglasses from the USA and my biggest worry is that they get stolen in transit due to our SAPO.

[Zakumi786]

Hi Gambit, I have been trying to buy some items from Amazon
And I registered and put my SA address details
But when I proceed to checkout it keeps saying
They can't ship to my address (a physical address in JHB) which
Has me somewhat confused :(

[cbrunsdonza]

That would be great if Take2 had even 10% of the products that Amazon have listed on their site.
I need to get some special sunglasses from the USA and my biggest worry is that they get stolen in transit due to our SAPO.

Contact Take2. I did that when an item was flagged as unavailble on Take2 but was in stock on Amazon US - the updated their DB same day to allow me to purchase.

BTW, it was cheaper to purchase via Take2 than Amazon direct. You also need to consider that Take2 handle the import duties and you also run the risk of needing a clearing agent (cost about R300) if customs decides to block your parcel from Amazon - seems to be happening more often than not lately.

[diabolus]

Hi Gambit, I have been trying to buy some items from Amazon
And I registered and put my SA address details
But when I proceed to checkout it keeps saying
They can't ship to my address (a physical address in JHB) which
Has me somewhat confused :(


Are you using amazon.com or amazon.co.uk ? . I believe amazon.com is full of restrictions sending stuff here, where amazon.co.uk are a bit more tolerant of dark africa :)

[Zakumi786]

Hi Diabolus

I was using Amazon.com as it says on the site
They ship to SA. Do you have any idea what type of restrictions
they place?

Does the UK site offer the full range though ?

[diabolus]

Hi Diabolus

I was using Amazon.com as it says on the site
They ship to SA. Do you have any idea what type of restrictions
they place?

Does the UK site offer the full range though ?


I'm not sure, i think they don't send electronics, only books ....at some stage they didn't send -anything- due to fraud, but not sure what the current status is. I ordered books from amazon.co.uk a motnh ago and they had no issues with my adress and shipping here.


As for the "full range" , they have different pricing and different products. So can't really say, you'll have to search for your specific product and see.

[Gambit]

I have ordered lots of things from amazon.com including electronics but there are certain products that cannot be shipped outside the US. I think they are restricted from selling outside of the USA due to supplier contracts. Ie. I want to buy a macbook pro as it is half the price on amazon.com but it doesn't ship outside US :(. Which kind of makes sense for apple to insist on this otherwise they would have very unhappy distrbuters around the world like core that would get bypassed as everyone would be ordering directly from amazon. The affected products normally say they don't ship outside US on their page.

[Paul_S]

Contact Take2. I did that when an item was flagged as unavailble on Take2 but was in stock on Amazon US - the updated their DB same day to allow me to purchase.

I didn't know that - thanks for the tip.

[ryan411]

I ordered 2 rather heavy books from amazon.com just over 30 business days ago. If i don't receive notification of them arriving at my local post office this week I am gonna start worrying! What can I do to check up on them? Chose the Std. Shipping (cheapest) option.

[mister]

I ordered 2 rather heavy books from amazon.com just over 30 business days ago. If i don't receive notification of them arriving at my local post office this week I am gonna start worrying! What can I do to check up on them? Chose the Std. Shipping (cheapest) option.

Get the US tracking number from amazon and call customs. The number is somewhere on the forums, but you could always phone your local sapo and ask.

[Statesman]

How difficult is it to ship to SA from USA? I live in USA so maybe i could help someone out. I'm willing to do an exchange for one item from amazon.com $15 or less for some authentic biltong. Anyone interested? I will ship first so if you really wanna be a dick and scam me you can! I just ask that if you scam me can you at least let me know if the shipping was successful for future reference. PM if interested.

[Paul_S]

I'm willing to do an exchange for one item from amazon.com $15 or less for some authentic biltong.

I've never been to the USA but isn't jerky (or beef jerky) the same thing as biltong?

Jerky (Wikipedia) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerky_%28food%29)
Looks pretty much the same to me although maybe you're after some nice Kudu or Impala biltong.

If you're looking for a supplier of biltong in USA and Canada you can try The South African Food Shop (http://www.southafricanfoodshop.com/)

[Archer]

I've never been to the USA but isn't jerky (or beef jerky) the same thing as biltong?

Jerky (Wikipedia) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerky_%28food%29)
Looks pretty much the same to me although maybe you're after some nice Kudu or Impala biltong.

If you're looking for a supplier of biltong in USA and Canada you can try The South African Food Shop (http://www.southafricanfoodshop.com/)

No no no no no no no no. I have had some beef jerky and its :sick:

[ryan411]

How difficult is it to ship to SA from USA? I live in USA so maybe i could help someone out. I'm willing to do an exchange for one item from amazon.com $15 or less for some authentic biltong. Anyone interested? I will ship first so if you really wanna be a dick and scam me you can! I just ask that if you scam me can you at least let me know if the shipping was successful for future reference. PM if interested.i might be interested. Well, am eyeing a $60 SoundSpa alarm clock but am worried since I wont have much of a warranty if it should break. I think the question to ask on your side will US customs allow the biltong into the country. I beleive if it is vacuum packed then it is fine. On our side the question to ask is will some thief at the post office or at customs steal the item coming in :( I suppose insurance can be bought, though I don't know the cost.

[CharlieBravo]

wantitall.co.za also bring products from Amazon US. If the product gets stopped at customs they pay for the release. What you pay on the site is all you pay...

[Statesman]

I've shipped things to Australia a couple of times and it was easy. Thats one of the things i was going to ask if whether the item can be insured cause from the threads i've read here the postal workers in SA seem to have sticky fingers. Also, I don't know about trading a 60$ item for biltong alone but i'm sure we can work something out.

[RazedInBlack]

Can anyone tell me the shipping cost of 10 books at with a total weight of 3.7 kg?

Thanks!

I don't know!

[diabolus]

I ordered 2 rather heavy books from amazon.com just over 30 business days ago. If i don't receive notification of them arriving at my local post office this week I am gonna start worrying! What can I do to check up on them? Chose the Std. Shipping (cheapest) option.

Go to the post office with your ID and ask them to look for it. The Post Office [and Customs] seems to be quite useless at sending notifications or updating the tracking when they receive the packages. My Amazon.UK order is still showing "In Transit : Last Tracked : Germany" . Meantime back at the ranch, the package was right here sitting at the Post Office. When you pay your VAT/Import Duties you can see when the post office received the packages and in my case they were sitting on the packages for 3-4 weeks until i just decided to pitch up there and ask them to search for it.

Amazon.UK originally estimated the packages will arrive in 2 weeks after dispatch....and it DID actuallly arrive in 2 weeks...except no one knew about it or told anyone about it.

And on a side note, the import duties i paid on the books at the Post Office:

1. VAT 14% (based on the value of the package EXCLuding the shipping cost. So if you paid $50 for the item and $20 for shipping, the VAT is only on the $50)
2. Clearance Fee [R25] . This seems to be a "fixed" amount regardless of the value of the package.

[ryan411]

I ordered 2 rather heavy books from amazon.com just over 30 business days ago. If i don't receive notification of them arriving at my local post office this week I am gonna start worrying! What can I do to check up on them? Chose the Std. Shipping (cheapest) option.
Get the US tracking number from amazon and call customs. The number is somewhere on the forums, but you could always phone your local sapo and ask.Wow, Amazon customer service is unbelievable. After I emailed them to ask them for the tracking number and mentioned that the package is late, they told me the following!

Amazon.com Customer Service wrote:
Hello,

I'm sorry to hear your books didn't arrive by the estimated delivery date.

In my experience, late packages arrive soon after the estimated delivery date. Please wait a little longer, until May 27, 2010, before requesting a refund or replacement. Otherwise, you might have to deal with returning a package.

International shipments do not have the tracking information and it's not possible to track where your shipment might be. Tracking number provided in the confirmation e-mail is just a reference number issued by Amazon.com and it cannot used to track the shipments. However the reference number for this order is #AMZPXYZ000xxxxxxx.

IMEX carries shipments to South Africa, but the final delivery will be made by your local postal service. You might want to check with your local post office to see if they have the package.

However, to compensate for this delay, I issued a full refund for the shipping charges on this order in the amount of $20.97.

[ryan411]

My 2 books have arrived at the post office after 41 business days and notification received about 3 business days after that. I see that i have to pay R98 customs duty which is 14% vat on the cost of the books and shipping and handling. How can they charge me VAT on shipping and handling? Is that allowed?

EDIT: Soz, only saw Diabolus' post now. So the amount they are charging me for customs does work out to be based on the value of the package excl. shipping costs + R25 for clearance!


And on a side note, the import duties i paid on the books at the Post Office:

1. VAT 14% (based on the value of the package EXCLuding the shipping cost. So if you paid $50 for the item and $20 for shipping, the VAT is only on the $50)
2. Clearance Fee [R25] . This seems to be a "fixed" amount regardless of the value of the package.