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Have to say the amazon uk service has been great for us - MRW in Estepona have always delivered well for us, left a notice when we weren't there at times and no problem at all picking up from them in Estepona. I think, generally, if they weren't doing the biz, Amazon would be scrutinising their contract with them.
Edited to say didn't just leave a notice but sent text message to us with all the details. So can't really fault them! This message was last edited by Pitby on 17/09/2011.
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I agree with the comments about MRW in Estepona. After being carded a few times, I met our local driver in their office and he asked me what my working hours are, so that he could deliver when I am in. I use Amazon UK a lot, as the whole process is simple and efficient, together with decent prices on most items.
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We have found it very helpful to be able to track our parcel: when one arrived while we were away on holiday, we checked to see where the local MRW office was. It was a short walk from home and so much easier popping in there to collect our parcel than going to the Correos and queuing for ages!
I checked the Spanish website, which has loads of books in English too. One book that I fancied was cheaper in euros than it was in pounds, so I don't think you can generalise, and if you want English language novels it is definitely cheaper than buying them in Spanish bookshops. There is free delivery if you spend 19€ +, which is better than the Supersaver delivery to Spain from Amazon.co.uk.
We have just had a delivery from the UK (thanks to my daugher Kate giving me an Amazon voucher for my birthday!) so won't need to order for a while, however we fully intend to order from Amazon.es in a month or so to try them out. If anybody else orders before then, please post your experiences on here!
Sue
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Sue Walker
Author of "Retiring the Ole Way", now available on Amazon
See my blog about our life in Spain: www.spainuncovered.com
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A bit off topic, I guess, but I noticed the other day, when I tried to put two stamped letters in the postbox attached to the local Correos in Santiago de la Ribera, they have cemented it all up???
So, you have to wait until they open to mail stuff, or find an elusive yellow box on the street!!!
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pilgrim
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Amazon Europe Rocks!
I'm surprised no one mentioned this before but unlike Apple with Amazon there ARE NO RESTRICTIONS ON WHERE YOU BUY. Apple drives me mad that way, thankfully I keep my CDN credit card or I'd be stuck with everything Spanish, anyways the beautiy of Amazon is the website for each country is very simular. I regularly troll all the amazons stores for the best price. Why pay more when you don't have to. Regarding returns as well I purchased a aux cable for my iphone, 10 pounds UK or 8€ Germany free shipping (am in Germany regularly) had a problem, and the return process was painless. When I do run into problems (trying to figure out how to return something for example) I open the UK website and the country from where I purchased it and use google translate, usually painless.
If your willing to be a bit adventourious you can save a lot of money.
What I'm currious about is if amazon.es will force you to fax a copy of your CC and your NIE each time you purchase
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Decided after all I don't like Spanish TV, that is having compared both.
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a small story of why I love Amazon, when my wife and I first moved to Germany from Canada 12 years ago (long before ipad and kindles) and of course like everywhere English books were insanely expensive, usually 10€
Well Amazon.de would ship books from the states for free at the exact exchange rate, so a book costing 6 US dollars would be 4.59€ with free shipping!!!!
Can't beat that
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Decided after all I don't like Spanish TV, that is having compared both.
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We just bought an Xbox with kinect and game from amazon.co.uk for about £260 - the same model here was €369 and on amazon.es is just under €330. So a big saving ordering from the uk site! Many things are still much cheaper on the uk site, but I guess you'll just have to compare and see which one comes through with the best price. I hope they don't now change the free delivery to Spain offer on the uk site! Rob, I have Apple accounts in Spain, the US and the UK - so long as you have an address to use, you can just use iTunes gift cards/vouchers from the country you have an account in - obviously for downloads, not for hardware. This message was last edited by Pitby on 19/09/2011.
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To put things into perspective I checked for a book which before Amazon.es became a reality you would have to order if you live in Spain and want your child to know her English. Be prepared for a study in math instead of language :)
Amazon.co.uk
English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English [Paperback]
RRP:£22.78
Price:£18.22 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
Amazon.es
English grammar in use. With Answers (included CD-ROM) [Paperback]
Raymond Murphy (Author) , Brigit Viney (Editor) , Miles Craven (Editor)
Recommended price: EUR 33.90
Price: EUR 23.73 and this product is available with FREE shipping (as it´s above 19E it´s free)
However when I really try to order this from Amazon.uk based on my Spanish address suddenly the base price changes to 19.91£ and the sum looks like this:
Items: GBP 19.91
Postage & Packing: GBP 6.47
Order Total: GBP 26.38 which amazon.uk reckons to be 31,50E
Current inter bank exchange (your mileage will vary)for pounds to Euro is 1,15 but not at Amazon apparently.
Remember amazon.es would send this over for free.
So it´s almost 7 Euros cheaper when ordered through Amazon.es and even if you could bundle it with other books to get rid of the shipping costs it would be less convenient, the delivery would take 3-7 days instead 3-5 days and in that case you would have saved only 2,5E but you would have to spend more.
And that´s on a book which will sell in large numbers in the UK and hardly in Spain. An example which would be the most difficult for amazon.es to compete on as having stock of this rare book for Spain will cost a lot more than in the UK (it´s on stock by the way).
The complaints about Spanish customer service I have never understood. In all the years we live here we find it exemplary customer minded with the freedom to return any item, opened, used or what within fourteen days. No questions asked! Where do you find that kind of service?
Anyway, I realize it´s just one book, but I hope it illustrates the point. It took enought time to compare this one correctly so I won´t do the other 1,052,166 books on Amazon.es :)
We are happy with Amazon.es and happy with EOS otherwise we wouldn´t have noticed.
Max
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Thanks for the number Max.
BUT your comment..... " The complaints about Spanish customer service I have never understood. In all the years we live here we find it exemplary customer minded with the freedom to return any item, opened, used or what within fourteen days. No questions asked!"
All I can say is that the next time I have to take something back...I'm taking you with me 
Justin
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Schools in Spain Guide | The Expat Files | Learn Spanish | Earn a living in Spain
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You live too close to Marbella :)
Really in the large stores it always works and as far as I know it´s a legal obligation as well. That we loose packing material, don´t know how to get the stuff back anyway, it´s all happily accepted. As you know it can be quite difficult to get something demonstrated to you in a shop but why would you. Take it home, try it out and bring it back. Money back, no vouchers. Only if you have damaged the goods you will get a shop voucher.
We have switched complete televisions this way. Much easier than trying to compare things in a shop. Even the often high handed Corte d´ingles not only says ´Garantía
La garantía de El Corte Inglés: si no queda satisfecho le devolvemos su dinero.
but we have also used i many times. In certain cases of special offers there is a restriction that it´s limited to 7 days but in general 14 days. Carrefour f.i. Dispones de 15 días para tus devoluciones. etc.
We have also used it at Aki, Leroy Merlin, Worten, Bauhaus, Fnac, PC-city.
Maybe you don´t smile enough Justin and It doesn´t work with used bottles of wine :) But seriously what is your experience with returning goods?
Max
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Max, probably a discussions for another thread but returning clothers that don't fit properly is a nightmare in smaller shops. Returning a toy to Toys R Us after 5 days...no money back just voucher, even though still in box and not even opened.
Non-functioning hoover back to Boulanger after 6 days..."Send it to the manufacturer in Malaga" was the response. They never replaced it.
That's just a snap shot....
BTW, Corte Ingles is different, they are very good with stuff like this.
Justin
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Schools in Spain Guide | The Expat Files | Learn Spanish | Earn a living in Spain
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Love your comments Max re buying books on Amazon.es. I usually buy electrical goods and guess what? The Amazon.es price is usually equal to any Spanish shop for the same item. For instance a Dyson Animal cleaner can be 150Euros more on Amazon.es that on its UK alternative where the instructions are in English and all one needs do is change the plug. As to buying from the UK with free to Spain for orders over £25 there is a catch. It is often mucvh cheaper to buy from other sellers on Amazon and pay the postage of around £4 than pay Amazon's inflated price.
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Daveil
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Hi All
I have shopped online with amazon in the u.k. for nearly 2 years
and their service is fantastic.I have bought so many items with them.
I went online last week to the spanish site and on that day there
was no facility for english, it was all in spanish so until I have a
bit more of the spanish language I will have to continue to order
from the u.k.
I am resident in spain now
This message was last edited by formentera costa on 20/09/2011.
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@lifeline I usually buy my electronics through amazon.com. I have a hired postal address there where they collect and send me the goods every once a while. Due to the Euro Dollar rate we easily can pay for the expensive shipping and still save a lot.
I did however notice that one item which could only be bought on Ämazon.com and not on the UK site now turned up on the .es site for the same prices as we paid after conversion, but of course we could have bought just tthat single item. But of course it makes sense to compare and after scoring a 42" Led tv at Eroski for a really ridiculous price we check the normal shops as well. I don´t find amazon.co.uk very cheap for electronics in general.
@justin: at all the children parties we go to or throw we get much too expensive gifts as the spanish go over board. But habit is that they slip you the bill as welll because they know the child could already have it or as it are often clothes as well, they won´t fit. So it´s common practice to back after collecting all the presents and start exchanging them. Very amusing for us to see but very practical as well. Apparently they also don´t have the problems you suffer.
You´re right though that small shops don´t have these policies and are stubborn and unwilling.
Max
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@maxi ordering from the US do you have any problems getting past customs, if you get caught it adds 30% to the cost, the worse part is they show up no notice and depend exact payment, and they never carry change. If your willing to deal with language hassle (google translate helps) prices often vary a lot between countries. There is a Chinese company (name escapes me) which is very popular with the Spanish, prices are way way cheaper due to the fact it ships tax free from Hong Kong, as long as it escapes the eyes of customs your safe. Not sure who mention this but iTunes requires a CC before placing an order, so it prevents you from ordering from say the US store unless you have a US CC.
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Decided after all I don't like Spanish TV, that is having compared both.
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Rob, if its above the IVA threshold I pay my charges, but the import duties are very low. The shiping company in the US is flexilbe with the declared value as long as it´s all above board.
I also import silly gadgets from the Far East which I´m sure when ordering will solve all my problems but when they arrive 12 weeks later I usually have forgotten what they were intended to do. The chinese leaflet doesn´t refresh my memory. I´m a gadgetoholic! However most Chinese no longer want to export to Spain due to customs here which
a) seems to play for 6 weeks with my gadgets
b) don´t seem to believe that I have so many Chinese friends sending me gifts and samples.
Hence the need to use amazon.com but I hardly buy Amazon´s own products.
Max
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Rob, off topic, but iTunes only require an address - you can set up an account with a gift card. You just go to the store of your choice (the country from which you have the gift card) and choose "redeem" to claim. As stated, I have accounts in the USA and the UK only using gift cards - my account in Spain is with a credit card as I live here.
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I regularly order through the uk site (at least 2 times a month for 3 years now) with no problems ever from MRW....I have ordered from amazon spain using the prime trial (free delivery on any size order) and its all arrived via MRW no problems there either (this is the vera, almeria depo)
I have found that about 70% of the books in english i was going to order from the uk site are cheaper than the uk site...alot cheaper infact...In some cases a book was £2.20 converted to 2.19 euro and they had a sale with up to 30% off foreign language books which made thm cheaper still....the downside was the delivery guy thinks i now have a shopping addicition.....
The spanish books are still pretty expensive...my local bookshop is cheaper
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I ordered a new mobile phone on Amazon.es. It was SIM-free as it was to replace my old UK mobile phone, which died on me recently - I am flying to the UK next weekend so I wanted a new phone asap. I know, I could use my Spanish phone and swap SIMs, but it was a pretty colour so I had to have it!
I was looking at two possible phones, so I checked the comments on the Amazon.co.uk website before deciding. The phone I bought would have cost £49.49 from the UK website and cost me 41.04€. I ordered it on Friday, using the Prime trial, and it arrived on Tuesday morning.
I checked the status of my order online and was a bit bemused to see that it was coming from Germany! I was even more bemused when I opened my parcel to find the instruction booklet was in German! However, when I put the UK SIM card into my new phone, everything came up in English on the screen, and I can probably download the booklet in English if I feel I need it.
My parcel was delivered by UPS. Luckily I was at home when the guy delivered it, so I don't know what would have happened if we had been out.
We plan to order some books over the next week or so, before the Prime trial expires. I am hoping that they use MRW for the books, as we have had never had a problem with orders from the UK site, plus there is a depot in town if we are out when they try to deliver our parcel.
By the way, Rob in Madrid, we usually watch Spanish TV and we enjoy it too. Occasionally I watch British TV online, however there are some good programmes on Spanish TV and it helps our Spanish too.
Sue
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Sue Walker
Author of "Retiring the Ole Way", now available on Amazon
See my blog about our life in Spain: www.spainuncovered.com
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