How I place my Amazon Orders

Some of you who follow me on Instagram have asked me to make a post saying how I place my Amazon orders. In this post, I'll explain how you can place an order on Amazon.com and have it delivered to your door step.

Before I start, I'll like to make it known that Amazon rarely delivers anything to Nigeria but some third party sellers who sell through amazon offer international shipping and also ship to Nigeria.

One: I use Amazon.com which is the American website. I prefer to use it because things are generally cheaper there. So to start, just log on to www.Amazon.com and create an account. 

Two: Locate an item that you are interested in by either browsing through the site or typing the name into the search bar. Once you find what you are looking for, click on it to open the item page.  On the lower right side of the screen you are going to see a box that is titled More buying choices. Click on the link at the bottom of the box that says used & new. The number of used and new items usually vary so it doesn't necessarily have to be 53 like it says in the picture.

Three: The link will take you straight to a page that has a list of vendors that sell the same item through Amazon. Scroll down and look for any vendor that offers both domestic and international shipping then click on add to cart. At this stage, I work with ratings. As you guys can see, ratings are clearly shown underneath every seller's name. The higher the ratings, the better the seller. Also bear in mind that not all sellers that offer international shipping actually ship to Nigeria. About 70% of them do but you won't know this till you select a shipping address so if a seller can't deliver to you, try another seller. For this post I'll be using a seller called Avidmax simply because I've used them before and they offer both domestic and international shipping. 

Four: Once you click on add to cart, you will be redirected to this page. Click on Proceed to checkout.

Five: I already have a couple of house addresses saved on amazon so after I selected one, I was redirected to this page. This is the page were you are usually notified if a seller does not deliver to your country but like I mentioned earlier, I've used Avidmax before and they deliver. So in this page, you are basically being asked to select a shipping speed. Standard shipping usually takes about to 10-20 business days and costs a lot less but with expedited shipping, your oder gets to you within 2-5 business days so you will have to pay more. Once you select a shipping speed, Click on any of the two continue buttons.

Six: Once you click on the continue button, it takes you to the final page which is where you place your order. Your own page does not necessarily have to look like this. Amazon in most cases can't really tell what currency you have in your card account so feel free to manually to change it. Once your order has been placed, you will instantly get an email confirmation. You will receive another email once your order has been shipped.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Only about 5% of the third party sellers that I've used actually offer expedited shipping to Nigeria. I mostly use standard shipping which hardly ever offers tracking but my orders usually get to me within 10 working days. Most Amazon third party sellers use USPS to ship so that means that my orders are usually delivered by NIPOST. Luckily for me, the people at the NIPOST office here in Enugu have been very efficient. My orders always get to me on time. The only time that I've experienced delay in delivery was during the christmas period and we all know Nigerian customs, they usually decide to hold on to a lot of things during that period for no good reason.

Not all third party sellers on Amazon are based in the US so don't be surprised when you receive your parcel and actually realize that it came all the way from Singapore.

If you ever decide to use expedited shipping please make sure you contact the seller to ask what courier service they use for that type of shipping. If the seller uses Fedex or DHL then you are good but if the seller uses USPS to ship orders out for express delivery, just stick with standard shipping. I learnt this the hard way. I ordered an item last year from two different sellers on the same day and I chose expedited shipping for both. One of them shipped with fedex and the other one used USPS. The fedex parcel got to me within 5 days like promised  but the one that was shipped with USPS took way more than the estimated delivery time. At the end of the day it wasn't even delivered I was called by those working at EMS which is a private company that handles all express deliveries for NIPOST  and I was told to come to the office and pick up my order and that when coming I should come with the sum of N1,500 or something like that, I can't really remember. So with USPS expedited shipping, you will have to manually go and pick up your order and also pay them for no good reason so be very careful. Like I mentioned in a previous post, you are not supposed to pay any NIPOST delivery man one Naira.

This was a very long post (I don tire) but I promised to put it up and I wanted it to be as detailed as possible. I also have upcoming They deliver posts on vendors that I have used so keep checking!

"He then said: "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones hear the word of the Lord! The Lord God says this: I am going to put spirit into you that you may live. I shall put sinews on you and make flesh grow on you; I shall cover you with skin and give you spirit that you may live. And you will now that I am the Lord.' " Ezekiel 37:4-6