Amazon.com does ship to South Africa

Posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009. Filed under Consumerism, Critical thinking, Media.

Some months ago the media in South Africa widely reported on Amazon.com changing its shipping policies to no longer ship to South Africa. A couple of posts on this blog explored that. Turns out the media was wrong for the most part.

Today I placed an order to prove this. The attached image is of my order review on Amazon.com, clearly displaying that standard shipping will be used for my order with a South African shipping address.

The truth is that Amazon did not stop shipping to South Africa. While its US store temporarily stopped shipping to the region using standard delivery, you could still make use of expedited shipping. Amazon’s UK store always has shipped to South Africa using standard postal delivery.

The US store has now changed its policy again and will once again ship to South Africa using standard shipping, affirming what I said in the first place: there is nothing wrong with the South African postal system.

Funny how the media (especially internationally) were quick to jump on the story of Amazon stopping its shipping, but is yet to report on the fact that it has started again. And that, in fact, it never stopped. As a journalist I find it worrying that none of my counterparts seems to have applied due diligence on this one.
Amazon does ship to South Africa

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  • Stewart
    Well I still find the shipping costs from Amazon.com to be very high - and I guess this is to cover themselves. $35 for shipping 4 Blu-rays is not cheap.

    Amazon.co.uk however has always had affordable shipping charges.
  • Snarsoo
    Simon thanks for the post. I mostly order books from Amazon and I am glad that the service has not been discontinued. I think though that even with exorbitant shippings costs the prices are on average still cheaper for books that any of our SA retailers especially when you start buying rare or pricier books.
  • Johan Louw
    Tried to order a camera and accesories from Amazon USA and that was not allowed? However, I was able to order two books on camera's which are on their way. Shipping costs are as much as the price of the books. In retrospect I probably could have got these cheaper locally.
  • shailendra
    Thanks a lot for this info.. I stopped ordering from Amazon for quite a while, was surprised when I logged on today that there wasn't anything on the site about NOT shipping to SA.. I agree the media created this misconception and then failed to correct it..
  • Hi! Thanx for clarifying this :) I was wondering what was the cost of standard shipping?

    It's going to be my first time buying from Amazon because I think their prices are cheaper than Kalahari.
  • Morkin
    You can go to Amazon Global Page "http://tinyurl.com/yjyzofa" They do internal shipment including South Africa as you will see on the country list on the left side on the page.The cost of shipping you have to go the bottom page and click on "Visit on our international Shipping help page" there will be detail on cost and time for shipping.
  • shawnholten
    Hey Simon,

    Ive seen a product on Amazon and was also wondering if they shipped to SA, since last years media frenzy.
    Thanks to your blog post I know now they do :)
    After doing a bit of googling I came across wantitall.co.za who seem to selling online goods via amazon with a huge mark up.
    For instance the item I want sells for $187 excl shipping on amazon and the same product on wantitall.co.za converted to rands sells for R3 600. I mean I know we are used to getting ripped in SA but this is ridiculous. I spose one can hold wantitall liable if anything goes wrong and if you purchase direct through amazon you are running a slight risk but amazon being a reputable online co. I'm actually not too concerned. Interested to hear your thoughts...

    Cheers
    Shawn

    So obviously Im going to go straight through amazon...
  • Well, there are the obvious risks involved with posting anything. The reality is that parcels do go missing - just not always due to the Post Office.

    I recently chatted to a number of online retailers in South Africa, including WantItAll, for an article I did for Fin24.com. I also spoke to Arthur Goldstuck, who pointed out that blaming the post office was a convenient excuse for some people looking to shift the blame.

    So use Amazon by all means - they have great policies surrounding missing parcels. But be wary that there are risks, even if they aren't as major as some would have us believe.
  • shawnholten
    Thanks Simon, I see wantitall are literally across the road from me, so maybe Ill pop over there at lunch.... :-)
  • Michelle
    I'm not sure why anyone bothers with the .com site. the uk site is way cheaper, especially the shipping costs. Plus, you don't have to worry about the NTSC system for DVDs.
  • Nice article Simon. It's good to see some integrity left in [some] journalism. I've been fortunate to visit the USA for extended times every year, so manage to get most of my purchases from Amazon here - I'm in the USA right now for a while - however, those I've needed in SA, I've received in good order and in good time, but for the exorbitant shipping costs...

    Funnily enough (?), the only time I've had a parcel lost is when a book I brought from SA was posted to New York from San Francisco and it was lost - forever! Never thought to register or insure on this side as everyone thinks it can never happen in the USA.
  • Carns
    Try orderign a laptop or computer equipment.
  • Sonja
    This is good news. Unfortunately there's some goods I could only get from the US store. And I agree the expedited shipping costs are very high. Personally I had some bad experiences with the post office losing my packages. Maybe with all the attention the post office got, they must have done something, because it has improved as of late. And the news articles I read where quite acurate on the shipping policies that Amazon had at the time.
  • Glad Amazon has resumed standard shipping to SA. The expedited shipping is great but it is a lot more expensive. If I wanted to pay so much I'd order from some local retailer.
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