Buy to Gift Operation

[Quoth]

How does gifting an Amazon Kindle title work? Can the recipient select a target Kindle device, download to PC and transfer via USB like a regular purchase?

Does the purchaser need to know the recipient's Amazon email address, or is it like an Amazon voucher?

Do both need to be on the same Marketplace?

Only answers from people that have gifted and received gifts, please. Actual Amazon FAQs can be misunderstood.

Some ebooks don't work on eInk, is this avoided and how?

[DNSB]

Amazon Canada does not allow gifting ebooks so I ended up doing an Amazon egift card for the cost of the ebook. Recipient and I were both in Canada so no worries about currency, etc.

I did check the book details to make sure the recipient could read it on their Kindle Basic before sending. Though that was a negative check assuming that the lack of the Available on these devices drop down meant it was compatible.

One item I haven't done personally but heard does not work is Amazon.com's give as a gift button appears to allow you to send to a Canadian but they will not be able to download the book, you get the "Kindle titles are available for CA customers on Amazon.ca. Continue shopping on the Kindle Store at Amazon.ca." message.

[Quoth]

Thanks. Gift vouchers are tricky too, inexplicably you have to buy it on the marketplace the recipient uses, which need not be your own marketplace. They can only be spent on the marketplace where they are purchased.

For now, the potential giver and recipient are in Ireland and using Amazon_co_uk. There is an option to use Amazon_com INSTEAD of (not as well as) Amazon_co_uk, which inexplicably is the Marketplace for Ireland, for Kindle.

Ireland Punt broke from Sterling in 1980s and Ireland isn't part of the UK since 1922. Amazon only exists from 1998, I think, and Punt pegged to Euro sometime then with actual notes 2000, I think.

Certainly originally you couldn't gift kindle ebooks, but you can now on Amazon_co_uk, having messed up once on the Gift voucher I want first hand users of the process on Amazon_co_uk!

Sorry for not clarifying that at the start. I've said elsewhere, on various places and times that it's baffling that all the Paypal, eBay, Amazon, etc domains are not just the same site with content filtered by location (either guest search or logged in profile) and separate user selection of language.

Mysteriously they DID add other languages to Amazon.de (try it) and the search even translates to find results that have only a German title and description. It also oddly better indicates if delivery is possible. Sometimes amazon UK does and other times is only at the checkout. Possibly in case you are entering a gift to another address, which is a security flaw loved by fraudsters.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Quoth

How does gifting an Amazon Kindle title work? Can the recipient select a target Kindle device, download to PC and transfer via USB like a regular purchase?

Does the purchaser need to know the recipient's Amazon email address, or is it like an Amazon voucher?

Do both need to be on the same Marketplace?

Only answers from people that have gifted and received gifts, please. Actual Amazon FAQs can be misunderstood.

Some ebooks don't work on eInk, is this avoided and how?

Not sure if you now have all the info you need, and I can only speak of experience with Amazon_com, not Amazon_co_uk. This is my experience both sending and receiving Kindle books as gifts:

You need to enter an email address for the recipient; I don't think it needs to be the same email they use for their Amazon account. They then receive an email saying, "You've received a gift from Oda!" It provides the title and a picture of the cover and a button-link that says, "Get your Kindle book gift now".

When they click on the button-link, it takes them to the book page on Amazon_com. If they're not already signed in to Amazon, they will need to sign in (and when I received a gift book, I'm pretty sure I could sign in with any email, it didn't have to be the same email that the gift email was sent to).

Once you're signed in to your Amazon account, you can accept the book. It then goes into your library as if you had purchased it, and it's treated the same as any book you have purchased yourself. If I'm remembering correctly, if you don't want the title, you have the option to decline the book and get a gift certificate in the amount of the book instead.

Also, you can give yourself a book if you want to test how it works — just fill in your own email address as the gift recipient.

[Quoth]

Excellent, thanks.