With the upcoming Gift Card Giveaway Hop approaching I've been asked if Amazon.com gift cards can be used by someone living Internationally. I can't seem to get an accurate answer.
Some people say yes, others no. I've read where they can be used for ebooks but you have to jump through some hoops to make it work. Also Amazon.com does ship Internationally so it seems like it is possible that the gift cards could be used by someone not in the US but I don't know. So here is my question for anyone who might know.
If a blog is offering an amazon.com gift card and sending it via email can someone in a country other than the US use the gift card?
If you live Internationally have you had an luck using an Amazon.com gift card?
I'm asking because I put US or Int on the linky for the hop letting people know where the giveaway is open to. I'm not sure what to put after those who are giving away an Amazon.com gift card.
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I know I'm not being much help, but I have sent several eGiftcards for Amazon to international giveaway winners. And all have been able to accept them.
ReplyDeleteGifting eBooks doesn't always work. Sometimes they have to turn the Kindle gift in for credit if the book is not available in their country or there are restrictions and they can't accept/download those books.
But for eGiftcards, no one has ever had a problem. Yet.
What Rachel said! ;)
ReplyDeleteHi, there. E-books are a big problem to us International followers. Especially Kindle. It is not available in Asia. I'm using Nook instead. I've tried using Amazon gift cards but it will only cover book prices and not shipping. Which is very sad because shipping cost is equivalent to the price of one book. And it takes forever to arrive. (Gosh..I'm babbling).
ReplyDeleteI'm Canadian and I have been able to accept and use the Amazon US gift cards/email. I've purchase items for delivery within the US and for delivery to my home in Canada.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Australia and I've bought my mum and brother Amazon gift guards (the kind emailed straight to them) and they haven't had any issue using them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I did my first giveaway, I listed an Amazon gift card as a prize option for non-US entries - but before listing that, I went on the Amazon website and I didn't see anything that would lead me to believe it wasn't possible to use.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like they do have limitations on some products that they will not ship internationally, but I didn't see that books should be an issue. And I love that they have the option of sending the gift card through email, rather than sending a physical card. That makes it so convenient, I think.
It depends - some countries can while others can't. My suggestion is to offer a certain amount of money, i.e. $10, to spend at The Book Depository. That's easier for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI only have one experience with this--I had a gift card giveway which was won by someone in Australia, I believe. I had to mail it to her but she was able to use it.
ReplyDeleteIf you order directly from the Amazon US then YES. Though this usually means horribly high postage rates!
ReplyDeleteIf you're, say, living in Europe (that would be me) it's helpful if the Amazon GC is either from Amazon UK or from Amazon Germany or from ... well China would be a bit problematic if you can't read and understand anything *lol* but you get the idea.
If you have an Amazon account you can use ALL these Amazon sites to log in, order, send GCs (best done by e-mail). I've won Amazon GCs before and I always kindly asked if it's possible to get the equivalent of the price from Amazon UK and it was never a problem. You just have to look at the current exchange rate, that's it.
Hope this helped :-) !!
I live in Europe, and I've always been able to use Amazon gift cards (for both US and UK). Hope you have a wonderful day! :)
ReplyDeleteI am from South Africa and often use Amazon.com Gift Cards ( the electronic ones). I have also won and used some, so I don't think there is a problem.
ReplyDeleteThere are no restrictions on which books you can buy but with some things like the 4-for-3 offers or the free shipping when buying above a certain amount that are only applicable to US users.
The main problem is that the shipping charges outside the US/Canada are rather high and as a rule of thumb, they are often as much as the price of the book itself.
On CDs, DVDs there are sometimes restrictions limiting certain ones to US or US/Canada only.
You do have to sign up with Amazon to be able to use the GCs.
Hope this helps.
As somebody mentioned The Book Depository is often a better option because the prices shown include shipping and their service is fast and efficient. Only problem is that they do not offer a GC option at the moment, so you would have to ask the winner for the name of the book they want and then order it giving them the winners address to send it to. They have some restriction on where they send books but not many.
Thanks for caring.
Carol T
Thanks for caring
I'm from Slovenia/Europe and Amazon gift cards work just fine for me.
ReplyDeleteBut I prefer The Book Depository. Free shipping. It's really a shame they still don't offer gift cards. Hope that will change soon now that Amazon "bought" TBD.
If you have an account at Amazon.co.uk rather than Amazon.com you can't use the .com gift certificate to shop in the UK store (the same would be true for the other international Amazon stores.) Therefore an Amazon.com gift certificate is not international.
ReplyDeleteI participate in your giveaways as a host blog and have accounts at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. When I give Amazon gift cards, I can give them to people who shop at either online store(as an alternative, I will also give away a book up to the value of the gift certificate from the Book Depository if the winner would prefer that.)
I 've never won gift card from amazon but i checked normally we are able to use it in international but you have to buy at the store it come from amazon.com gift card works on amazon.com only. So it's true that if we could choose which amazon it would be great ( don't forget amazon.fr^^)
ReplyDeleteBut i really prefer BookDepository because there are no shipping fee.
I live in belgium and for a book from amazon i have minimum 8dollars of shipping fee...if i win 10dollars card i can't have a book. With book depository i can have the one i want.
So it would be great to offer the choice to the winner
I live in South Africa and I've won and used Amazon gift cards before. They work without any fuss. Amazon ships books/cds/dvds to many international countries. All the countries that can buy Kindles can also buy ebooks (although some are limited to a smaller selection.)
ReplyDeleteWhat you could do is add a link to the Amazon.com website where they explain which countries they ship to, and ask people to check there before entering.
Looks like you've got plenty of responses, but I'll add mine :) I'm in Australia and I've used them before, no problems. Like other commenters have said, postage is ridiculous, but you can usually find books cheap enough that it balances out somewhat. Most Book Depository giveaways say it's international so long as they can ship to you, I'd just say the same for the Amazon ones.
ReplyDeleteHi Kathy!
ReplyDeleteYou can send amazon.com GC all over the world and it can be used all over the world.
I live in Estonia and I have received and sent GCs to/from Suriname, United Arab Emirates, US, Australia, Tansania, even China.
So it shouldn't be any problem.
amazon.com has a list of all UN countries, so you can send the GC by email to any part of the world. It does not need to be e-book only, GCs can be used also for paper books.
All my giveaways have been international and I have used GCs many many times and have never experienced that it is not working.
Besides, GCs can be cross used between amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and all the other amazons. :)
@Inga: Are you sure that you can cross use Amazon GCs between eg Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk? If so, they must have changed that, because when I once received a GC for the US site I couldn't use it on the UK site, because of the different currency which the account didn't accept. All I know is that about a year ago this didn't work, but if it should be possible now it would be great, of course!
ReplyDeleteIve never had any problems using eletronic GCs. I live in Brazil and have been able to use them for physical books and e-books. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm from India and I've won several Amazon US giftcards and it's never been a problem using them. Also, I'm not big on e-reading, so paperbacks and hardcovers are mostly what I've opted for and there's never been a problem at all.
ReplyDeleteMy only complaints are:
a) It takes about a month to deliver products internationally.
2) International shipping is extravagant. It's more than double the cost of the product! So, $20 giftcards kinda end up being a waste for me. Which is why I prefer Book Depository.
Anyway.
Amazon does ship internationally and I've never really faced any problem regarding it. I speak from first-hand experience. (Unless, a particular country's laws forbid it).
Hope that helps!
Just a thought, but it might be nice to open up to us what type of amazon gift card we can get. I know I will be offering both US and Canada and maybe UK (English websites...so I know what I'm looking at!). That way the shipping wont be an issue if someone wants the one to their country (and not US). For example, we have our own "buy $25 get free shipping" offer on the .ca site but if you buy from the US site, like others say it could cost the price of the book. There is no free shipping, no matter how much you order when you buy internationally from Amazon.com.
ReplyDeleteI live in Canada and I use amazon.com all the time. I just save up to get $40.00 and then my books are shipped free.
ReplyDeleteIf there is some book that I really want then I do end up paying $12.50 for shipping. I don't mind because I cannot buy it elsewhere.
I have often wondered why some sites say US only for amazon.com gift cards. because anyone can use them.
I live in Italy and I've won and used gift cards, but due to high shipping rates, I prefer the Book depository. It's even faster for those of us living in europe
ReplyDeleteI live in Australia and the main issue with Amazon gift cards are postage. Postage for a single book from amazon is a minimum of $12.50 so a gift card of $10.00 which is common, is not terribly useful. I will use it to buy ebooks though but not everyone has an ereader or a Kindle.
ReplyDeleteAnother option is to offer the equivalent amount deposited into a paypal account which people can then spend where ever they like.
I still prefer book depository to all other options though.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI live in Mexico and haven't had problems using Amazon gift cards or downloading ebooks. I've also received physical copies.
I guess that it depends on the country you're in and the book you're trying to buy. I'm all for Amazon GC.
Hope this answer is useful.
I am in AUSTRALIA & can use Amazon gifts cards with no problems at all. To cover the cost of the exorbitant postage I wait until I have a few - they don't expire.
ReplyDeleteWell, I can only speak for myself. I live in Lithuania, and I have no problem using Amazon GCs, although funnily, the shipping to my country is cheaper if I use the US Amazon site, not UK or DE.
ReplyDeleteI don't buy from Amazon though, because The Book Depository has better prices, also ships for free and delivers faster, but I like that Amazon gift cards can be combined towards a more expensive purchase than what is usually offered through giveaways.
I'm in Canada, and have an amazon.com account and can ship to Canada. However, I like to make sure I have enough saved up, or the gift card has to be worth while in order to cover shipping across the border.
ReplyDeleteI use amazon.com in canada all the time with no issue. They ship to us. certain things I have been denied.. like certain electronics.. but everything else I have had no issues. I have won a couple amazon.com gift cards and had no trouble using them
ReplyDeleteI don't read ebooks. To me, it's just a file and it's almost non-existent to me. If I had an e-reader (nook for amazon) then that would change, but... I've never bought anything from Amazon before. Ever.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that postage to AUSTRALIA is so costly! I've only ever gotten one giftcard, but the shipping was so expensive (like $30) that I had to give it away. I'd much prefer a BOOK DEPOSITORY giveaway.
I don't know. I recently had trouble when trying to send a Kindle book gift to someone in the UK. Also, my Amazon.com login does NOT work for all of the other Amazons. I've tried. I think you need a separate account for each, which really sucks. When I contacted Amazon about that Kindle gift, they told me that the other Amazons are independent of them.
ReplyDeleteAmazon GC are good around the world...as long as you have an account and the card is applied to that account. I had occasion to purchase a book from Amazon UK but funds from my gift card balance could not be used for this order because they don't have access to my account in the US. Even though it is Amazon, each country's branch of Amazon is unique and the branches are not linked.
ReplyDeleteI am international reader and yes if I want to I can easily redeem an Amazon Gift card (I have done so in the past)
ReplyDeleteBut why would I want to? Amazon's ridiculous shipping charges add $11 to the price of the first book and $4 per book after that. They even add $2 to the cost of e-books for international readers.
Despite discounts after shipping The Book Depository is cheaper 95% of the time.
I would never take part in a giveaway offering an Amazon Gift card and if I received one I would give it to friends living in the US.