My Amazon shopping experience from Nigeria

Nabanker


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Posted by on Saturday September 6, 2014 at 17:29:20:

One of the benefits of having an account with your bank is that it allows you to pay for bills related to a lot of stuff including online shopping. You don't always have to carry cash around with you but with your bank issued Visa or Mastercard, you can pay for stuff you'd want to have on the internet.

I've been shopping online on a couple of websites, some locally and some internationally. I've shopped at local sites like Jumia, Konga, Dealdey as well as foreign websites like Aliexpress, MiniintheBox and Amazon and after a recent order I made at Amazon got delivered, I deem it fitting to also write a review on this experience.

You don't have to travel to the USA, UK or China anytime you want to go for shopping and you don't always have to settle for lower quality products in Nigeria when you can have access to US based retailers. Amazon is one of the shopping websites that Nigerian residents can have access to as long as they have a Visa or Mastercard.


Amazon.com is one of the best places where I love to shop online and they are a major brand when it comes to online shopping for most countries in the world, not jut the USA. Amazon allows one to have access to items and products that are produced or sold by US retailers as well as imported goods. You'd find that goods you buy at Amazon may at times be a bit pricey but they come with good quality and reasonable price.

Amazon is one of the few US shopping websites that accept credit and debit cards issued in Nigeria but they have to be Visa or Mastercard and it doesn't really matter if it's a Naira or Dollar card. The only thing is that most Naira cards don't come enable for online shopping at Amazon and so if yours don't work for the site, you should just tell your bank to enable it for Amazon. The Prepaid USD Visa or Mastercard come automatically enable for online shopping at Amazon.

I recently bought some things at the Amazon US store and it has already been delivered to me but not directly by Amazon but through a US mail forwarding service I also signed up for.

If you are resident in Nigeria but want to buy things on US stores like Amazon, you would just need to also sign up with a US mail forwarding service so that you'd use the US address given to you to receive your goods from Amazon for forward shipping to Nigeria.

I bought some casual shirts and car accessories from Amazon but before that, I had to check with the Nigerian custom service website just to ensure that importing clothes was not prohibited on their website. Since this is like the first time I'm bringing clothes to Nigeria from Amazon, I need to make sure first. I ordered for my items and paid with a Naira Visa card and my bank account got debited with the Naira equivalent of the bill in US Dollars.

After my shopping, Amazon shipped the items to my US address and I was able to track it online with USPS until it got delivered. I also got a notification email from my US shipping agent that the package has been delivered. All items were not delivered at the same time and so I waited for all of them to be delivered in order to consolidate it and ship in bulk.

It's normally better to ship your items in bulk when using an international shipping service like DHL rather than shipping in single units since there is is a fixed cost you are going to pay for your shipping per kg. My items were about 10kg and after requesting my US shipping agent to forward it to me, I was billed about N21,250($125)for the 10kg in weight of clothing I had ordered for on Amazon.

It took about 2 days for my Amazon order to arrive at my US address and about 4 working days for it to reach me in Nigeria after I made the shipping request with my US mail forwarding provider.

One tip I have for people who might want to buy things like clothes on Amazon from Nigeria is to also ensure they know their correct size. I thank God all the clothes I bought at Amazon were my right size because it would be hard to return such items all the way from Nigeria.

Things I used:
==============
- Amazon buyer's account
- US Mail forwarding service
- Nigerian issued Visa card
- An Internet connection

There are several reasons why I like buying stuff at times from Amazon and one them is because of the quality goods in Nigeria. A second reason is because the prices are reasonable and can actually save you money. A third reason is because they have a large inventory of items which is much bigger than any local store(physical or online) you can find in Nigeria.






Comments:
Re: My Amazon shopping experience from Nigeria Reply by Naomi on Saturday June 11, 2016 at 22:29:3:

Good day, please what was the exchange rate at the time you bought your items, did you pay in dollar or naira and if in naira was it the same charge as per the Amazon exchange rate or Nigerian black market or the normal rate at the bank which goes for #199 to $1, please need your advice and help on this. Thanks



Re: My Amazon shopping experience from Nigeria Reply by Felix Okoli on Saturday June 11, 2016 at 22:29:3:

I was billed the exact Naira rate displayed on Amazon when checking out. If you have indicated that your card is a Naira card, they will show you the conversion rate before your make payment. I was charged the exact Naira rate shown on Amazon before I confirmed the payment. Due to the falling value of the Naira, I now make use of Dollar debit cards on Amazon and it's linked to my domiciliary account.




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