I received an email from a reader today letting me know that Amazon now ships certain Lego sets to Australia!
As I spend half my life on Amazon this took me by surprise. Needless to say I had to find out for myself and promptly went to the Amazon.com website, placed a large Lego set in my cart and checked out.
The order went through without a hitch, dispatched within 24 hours and saved me $70 off a $250 set!
I am not sure when the change took place but I am very happy that it did. This change might be in effect for other countries that had previously been blocked but I can only speak for Australia – If in doubt try it out!
I took a little browse around and found that not all sets can ship, some larger sets like The Death Star and the Modular Pet Store are amongst those I still can’t add to my Aussie-bound cart.
However there are many that can be shipped – Diagon Alley, Tantive IV, Ninjago Fire Temple, Modular Emporium and heaps more.
One of the best savings is on the Lego Mindstorms set which retails for $450 in Australia but can be bought for $300 through the Amazon store.
Like most overseas purchases the larger the set the better the deal, as postage is $20 for the first item and $10 for each additional item. So a small set just wouldn’t make sense.
Curious, I also tried other things like the Kitchenaid Stand Mixer, a victim of huge mark-up prices in Australia; retailing for $695 over here but available for $315 shipped via Amazon – a saving of $380! There were many other things I could order as well – take a look for yourself if you are unsure.
If you are an Australian in the market for just about anything it would pay to check out the site before you shop locally this Christmas – Amazon is no longer just a Book/DVD/CD retailer for Aussies!
Given this change I will be letting you know if sets ship to Australia in my set guides and reviews. I will also be paying more attention to sales and deals other Amazon sites like Amazon.fr, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk as I see there are a growing number of international visitors to the site.