Content “Traveling” to shop in Kindle Canada/UK Stores

[dandelioncottage]

Is buying Kindle books from non-US stores really as simple as just changing my US address to a randomly-generated address for the desired country? (I have a gift card in my account.) Will the book show up (and stay) on my Kindle devices? Anything else I should know? Thanks.

[Aleron Ives]

Amazon gift cards are locked to the currency of origin. You can visit Amazon UK with a US account, but your gift card balance will show 0 GBP, because your balance is in USD.

[dandelioncottage]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Amazon gift cards are locked to the currency of origin. You can visit Amazon UK with a US account, but your gift card balance will show 0 GBP, because your balance is in USD.

Thanks. How can I pay for the books?

[DNSB]

You would have to buy a card at the Amazon national store and in the currency you want to use and then add it to your account.

That is, if you wanted a card for £50 GBP, you would need to buy the card at amazon.co.uk.

[Quoth]

An actual Kindle, in most cases, has to be registered to a particular market-place and only ebooks there can be bought. Obviously this doesn't apply to an app.

You can be based in most countries and buy a Gift voucher in the market place where it will be used. A gift voucher can't be used in a different market place. It can be bought for someone giving the email address that Amazon has for the recipient. Once applied to an account it can only be used on Amazon, excluding Card payments or Gift vouchers, not transferable.

Amazon certainly last year or before started detecting non-domestic USA addresses and would not allow even digital sales to them.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Amazon gift cards are locked to the currency of origin. You can visit Amazon UK with a US account, but your gift card balance will show 0 GBP, because your balance is in USD.

No, Amazon Marketplace, not currency. Some Marketplaces do have the same currency. Obviously most Amazon Marketplaces have a their own local currency (AUS$, CAN$, US$, euro GBP£ etc), though some allow an alternate currency at checkout, but sometimes at a worse exchange rate than your credit card (e.g. Irish customers (euro) are expected to mostly use UK, though depending on purchase Amazon Germany can be used in English (euro) and USA can be used. Irish customers can elect to have ALL digital purchases (for ALL devices/apps) either on UK Marketplace or USA Marketplace, but the UK geographic rights still apply so a USA Kindle title unavailable in UK is unavailable. The local USA ($) or UK (£) prices do seem to apply, but Irish VAT is added. Physical sales other than from Germany (or other EU) Marketplace to Ireland (i.e. UK and USA) may also have customs duty. Customs is on sale price plus shipping. VAT is applied to total of sale, shipping and any customs duty.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by dandelioncottage

Is buying Kindle books from non-US stores really as simple as just changing my US address to a randomly-generated address for the desired country? (I have a gift card in my account.) Will the book show up (and stay) on my Kindle devices? Anything else I should know? Thanks.

It's actually easier to "travel" using Kobo or eBooks.com. Yes, you get ePub. but if it has DRM, you can remove the DRM and convert to KF8 or KFX for your Kindle.

You will need to use calibre and the DeDRM plugin.

[dandelioncottage]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's actually easier to "travel" using Kobo or eBooks.com. Yes, you get ePub. but if it has DRM, you can remove the DRM and convert to KF8 or KFX for your Kindle.

You will need to use calibre and the DeDRM plugin.

I’ve had success with Kobo in the past, but unfortunately, these books are only available on Kindle. Thank you, though.

[TheSmitty]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's actually easier to "travel" using Kobo or eBooks.com. Yes, you get ePub. but if it has DRM, you can remove the DRM and convert to KF8 or KFX for your Kindle.

You will need to use calibre and the DeDRM plugin.

I would love to know how to do this (the travel part). Tried changing store to Canada but when I selected a title it said not available in United States.