I buy a lot of books and video games from Amazon. In Europe there are three Amazon sites: In the UK, France, and Germany. I live in Belgium, which is basically the same distance from all three of these countries, so I usually buy from Amazon UK, as they have the largest selection of books and games in English.
So I was reading this article about Amazon in the Economist, and they wrote about the Amazon Prime service, where for $79 a year you get unlimited express shipping at no additional cost. Sounds interesting, so I check how much shipping cost I paid to Amazon this year. Year to date 2006 I ordered books and games from Amazon UK for about $500, paying shipping cost of about $50, or 10%. In view of christmas shopping, $79 per year for shipping could be worth it. Especially since I wouldn't have to wait with my orders to get several items together for lower shipping cost any more. Only the Amazon Prime service isn't offered in Europe. Doh!
Instead a good number of European customers get free shipping, for all orders above $25. Shipping is free if a UK customer buys from Amazon.uk, a French or Monaco customer buys from Amazon.fr, or a German, Austrian, Swiss, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg customer buys from Amazon.de. If you are from Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Scandinavia or Eastern Europe, you are out of luck. Grrrrr! If I lived 200 km further east, west, or northwest, I'd qualify for free shipping, but sitting right in the middle I pay an additional 10% shipping cost on my orders. Not fair!
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