Products ordered from Amazon in Spain now have lower postage and packing costs in a response to demand in Portugal where expats and nationals now are unwilling to order from the UK, but still want to buy books and DVDs.
Three month ago Amazon UK dropped its ‘super saver free delivery’ business model and suffered a catastrophic fall in demand as expats in Portugal simply stopped buying.
The Spanish website for Amazon has over 50,000 books in Portuguese and many more titles in English plus DVDs and games.
Clients in Portugal can now count on a "selection of over 44 million different products available in one click, including more than 50 thousand books in Portuguese," according to Garambois Xavier, vice president of Amazon Europe.
Previously, Amazon in Spain charged €6.99 per shipment of books, DVD or CD to Portugal, the price now ranges from €3.99 and €4.49.
The April closure of the "super save free delivery" ended four years of uninterrupted service from the UK with orders of €31.50 delivered free of charge. The price hike saw customers being asked to pay a basic price of €8 per delivery, many did not bother.
Despite the good news from Spain, one Portuguese newspapaer put in a test order and found that, despite the reduction of postage, not all orders are cheaper on Amazon Spain as the product base price can be higher than in the UK.
‘Jornal de Negócios’ did conclude that DVDs were cheaper from the Spanish Amazon.
