Everything You Need to Know About Shopping on Amazon.de Germany - Don't bring gift cards over! | Moving to Germany
Here are some tips on using Amazon in Germany! This is not an ad, I'm actually not happy with the recent news of how Amazon workers are being treated and have no affiliation with them, but I also know how much of a life saver Amazon can be overseas.
Amazon.de is technically different from Amazon.com. So if you get any moving away/congratulations gift cards for Amazon.com, you cannot use them with Amazon.de.
Which means, your prime membership also isn't valid for Amazon.de. You'll have to cancel your Amazon.com Prime Membership and sign up for a new one on Amazon.de. Which isn't a big issue if you time the yearly membership right, but this can be a bit confusing at first because your login is valid for both sites but your .com Prime Membership doesn't work for Amazon.de so you have to make a new account if you want Prime.
Also, they do Prime Membership here by the month.
Amazon.de does have a language function on the top right of the page so you can use the site easily even if you don't speak German. It'll translate your English searches into German for you too!
You CAN use your US credit cards on Amazon.de so if you have some credit cards that don't charge international fees, you're in luck. Initially, we thought we could only use a German bank account because other German sites wouldn't let me order without a German billing address for the card. But that isn't the case with Amazon, you can use your US credit cards.
Which leads me to say, a lot of items on Amazon.de seem to be credit card only? There have been quite the number of items that we can't purchase with our German bank account. And considering credit cards are rare here and expensive (usually come with yearly fees?), your US credit cards may come in handy.
(Update - we may have had issues with our bank account because our 'PayDirekt' wasn't activated. We have had no issue purchasing items on Amazon.de with our bank account since we activated it)
It doesn't seem like Amazon.de has as good of deals as their US counterpart does. I've found our local Kaufland (kind of like a German Walmart but smaller?) has comparable prices if not often, cheaper products. So check your local store prices because Amazon.de isn't always cheaper here. It is still very helpful for finding plenty of things we wouldn't see at the local stores though!
Which leads me to say, if you can't find something locally nor on Amazon, don't be afraid to look on other sites. Online shopping is convenient here as shipping is usually around 5 Euros for any European site. My husband's coworkers even purchase their craft beers online. They recommended we look online for GF beers as my husband has Celiac's.
Amazon.de does have a language function on the top right of the page so you can use the site easily even if you don't speak German. It'll translate your English searches into German for you too!
You CAN use your US credit cards on Amazon.de so if you have some credit cards that don't charge international fees, you're in luck. Initially, we thought we could only use a German bank account because other German sites wouldn't let me order without a German billing address for the card. But that isn't the case with Amazon, you can use your US credit cards.
Which leads me to say, a lot of items on Amazon.de seem to be credit card only? There have been quite the number of items that we can't purchase with our German bank account. And considering credit cards are rare here and expensive (usually come with yearly fees?), your US credit cards may come in handy.
(Update - we may have had issues with our bank account because our 'PayDirekt' wasn't activated. We have had no issue purchasing items on Amazon.de with our bank account since we activated it)
It doesn't seem like Amazon.de has as good of deals as their US counterpart does. I've found our local Kaufland (kind of like a German Walmart but smaller?) has comparable prices if not often, cheaper products. So check your local store prices because Amazon.de isn't always cheaper here. It is still very helpful for finding plenty of things we wouldn't see at the local stores though!
Which leads me to say, if you can't find something locally nor on Amazon, don't be afraid to look on other sites. Online shopping is convenient here as shipping is usually around 5 Euros for any European site. My husband's coworkers even purchase their craft beers online. They recommended we look online for GF beers as my husband has Celiac's.
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