Buying presents for US friends/family from here?

[specialmagiclady]

Hi all,

We have good friends and family in the US. I want to buy them Christmas presents from US websites that will accept pounds and then not charge me tons for shipping. Thought Amazon would do this, but turns out it's A Bad Way to do this.

We would be looking for toys etc and perhaps Things of Beauty for grownups. Gifty stuff...

Any ideas?

what's wrong with amazon.com?

I've used Amazon.com loads of times - no problems.

If you have paypal or a credit card most sites based in the US will work just fine. The websites don't have to accept pounds - your credit card will convert the transaction for you.

Yes can't understand the problem with Amazon.com

You could also try ToysRus

Amazon.com just directs me to amazon.co.uk thus I spent £16 shipping some crappy plastic to my god-daughter last year.

I did this for a friend who gave birth in the US last year, bought from amazon.com and paid by credit card in Euros, it is converted online so you know what you are paying and they delivered it promptly - it was no problem at all. What makes you say it is A Bad Way to do things?

sorry cross posted. That sounds odd. My order went straight through, I was not redirected to a European site.

Why not mail amazon.com and ask about that?

Make sure you type amazon.com rather than just amazon into the website and it should work - or if not at amazon.co.uk you should be able to change countries (go to the bottom of the page, there are links to other countries)

Amazon.com always works for me too. Well in fact I do it the other way round but it works for my UK family.

The good thing about Amazon is that it doesn't mind you having umpteen shipping addresses, none of which bear any resemblance to your actual address.

Think I have worked it out - I need to set up a separate account in amazon.com, not try to use my co.uk account! Faff, but cheaper than £16!

we do this too - def through amazon.com. haven't yet found any other sites that allow you to have a UK billing address. Toys r us def don't ley you - nor walmart.

Just remembered - we've done it with gap too but you have to call them. Its not a problem once you call though

I am pretty sure I use the same account

I ordered from amazon.de, amazon.co.uk, amazon.com and amazon.fr all using the same account. Only thing I changed when ordering for things to be sent to family or friends overseas was the delivery address.

not sure what the hiccup was when you tried ordering from amazon.com and got redirected to amazon uk. Can't imagine what happened there unless it was to do with the payment mode somehow