Amazon made a name for itself by selling books online. Today, however, it provides an amazing variety of goods, not to mention its own invention – the Kindle ebook reader. If you want to buy an ebook reader, the Kindle from Amazon.com is probably your best bet. The cheapest way to buy a Kindle is to buy it directly from Amazon.com. (We provide you with links for that .) Ebooks are also an excellent buy from Amazon.com because you can download them without paying for shipping.

There are a few things which you have to bear in mind when buying from Amazon.com:

 

Amazon.com does ship to South Africa – although, not all their products. Pricing for shipping is divided into 3 categories: Kindles, books + DVDs and everything else. (Pricing provided is approximately based on an exchange rate of R7.60 per $1.00)

1. For any Kindle shipment you pay R150 per shipment and then add R75 per Kindle. So for example, if you buy 2 Kindles for your family, you’ll pay R300 for the shipment.
2. For books you pay R300 per shipment and then add R75 per book.
3. For anything else you pay R300 per shipment and then add R100 for every kilogram.

It takes 3 to 6 days for your items to arrive.

Of course, there are items that you can just download, such as ebooks for which you don’t pay any shipping.

There is a problem, though, that you need to be aware of: Amazon does not ship all its products to South Africa. They have two types of restrictions:

• Shipping restrictions: These are easily overcome. Read my article on Why you need an American shipping address.
• Billing address restrictions: These are much more serious and have to do with digital rights. Bypassing these are illegal – so I won’t go there.

For me the best buys by far from Amazon are the Kindles and ebooks. The Kindles are a good buy because you buy them directly from the supplier and get the best prices. Read my article on the best way to buy Kindles. 

Ebooks are a good buy because you have a great variety at an excellent cost and you can download them directly without paying for shipping. Read my article on Why ebooks are a good buy.