BUT, there’s A SOLUTION!
- Amazon doesn’t ship Kindle out of the US. Therefore you must register with Vpost first. With Vpost, you can buy products from countries like, US, Europe and Japan.
- Go to Amazon.com, log into or create an account if you do not already have one. Buy the Kindle 2/DX and have Amazon shipped it to your Vpost (USA) address. I will skip the rest of the procedures between you and Vpost as you can find them at their site.
- Once you receive your Kindle 2 in Singapore, the fun begins!
- Log into your Amazon.com account and buy a Gift Certificate and email the code to yourself.
- You should be able to receive the gift certificate code in your email in a matter of minutes.
- Copy and paste and apply the code to your Amazon account.
- Delete ALL you existing credit card information. Reason being that when you buy a Kindle book, the system will check this information and when it recognises that your credit card is not issused by a US bank, the purchases won’t go through.
- Drum rolls please…..
- Congratulations! You should now be able to buy books for your Kindle 2. Just ensure that the gift certificate has enough credit for what you are purchasing.
- To download your purchased books and sync to your Kindle via USB, go to ‘My Account’, scroll down to ‘Digital Content’ and click on the ‘Manage Your Kindle‘ link.
- Scroll down until you see, ‘Your orders and individual charges’. You should be able to see all your purchases. And on the right, there is an option for you to download your purchases to your computer.
- Connect your Kindle via USB and drop the newly purchased book(s) into your Documents directory of your Kindle and HAVE FUN READING!
- Hope the above instructions help. If you run into any problems, feel free to ask me via this blog.
*Updated on 2 Jul 09: Thank God, I finally found the original blog where I learned this trick from. Credit must go to NerdGirl! I just tweaked it to people here living in Singapore. 
WARNING! (dtd 10 Jul 09): DO NOT use IE 8 to purchase your Kindle books. A reader, David, had problem purchasing his Kindle books, even with the gift voucher. Until he changed to Google Chrome, the problem was solved!
Update: 10 Jul 09: PDF Conversion: If you want to read pdf books, no problem! Just send your pdf book to yourusername@free.kindle.com. And in a few minutes time, an. azw (Kindle) version will be sent back to you. There’s no need to add Subject or Body heading. But remember the word, “free.” must be added in front of “kindle.com”. Therefore, it should be @free.kindle.com, not @kindle.com.
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I’ll be going to San Francisco from the 11th to 14th. And there’s an Apple shop near the place where I’ll be staying. So tempted.
Only gribe about this iPad is that it doesn’t come with a in-built USB port. It’s really a bummer. And yes, can’t play flash files too!
Melvin & rest
anyone planning to buy it?
Hey guys,
Check out the new iPad here at our very own Apple Singapore website: http://www.apple.com/sg/ipad/. Be sure to watch the video. A potential Kindle killer?
Wendy and the rest,
Keen to get the Apple iPAD when it releases and run Kindle App on it ?
Hi Charles
Thanks very much – appreciate your feedback.
Hi Shao,
I have subscribed to magazines using a US Debit Mastercard but since my card expired i never tried using SG CC.
Shao January 24, 2010 at 12:14 am
am seriously considering purchasing a kindle, but can we still download subscribed magazines to the kindle in singapore?
Esther i have been reading from elsewhere Amazon started to probe on non usa users to show their USA ID to prove they indeed stays in USA. I
Melvin Is it really necessary to VPN into amazon before we buy books from Amazon?
Wendy January 21, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Hi Wendy, i use the original email i used to register my kindle to amazon. my iphone 1 and iphone 2 is able to access the kindle account via 3G and WIFI. no issues
________
Hi Charles
I finally managed to download kindle onto my iPhone. Just checking – when you register the kindle onto the iPhone, did you use the same email address and password that you use for amazon.com?
Many thanks
Wendy
Do any of you have problems purchasing Kindle books?
I have Hotspot shield on, all CC info/ old mailing addresses removed, country indicated as USA, but am have just received an email from Amazon asking me to verify my country of origin. The only reason I can think of at this point of time is that my email has a .sg behind. Does this mean I need to deregister my current Kindle, and reregister it again under a new email account?
Hey Jack,
Anything that costs more than S$400 will be subjected to GST. So the answer is yes. When vPost bills you, as long as your item(s) is(are) more than S$400, GST will be added to the amount.
Regards,
Melvin Neo
Hi Melvin,
When the Kindle was shipped to you, did you need to pay custom duties for it?
The best and fastest way to solve this is to call vpost. Happened to me too. I had 2 items to be delivered to vpost@USA but it’s supposed to be in one package. Vpost spilt my amazon invoice into 2 invoices. And they wasted one week waiting for the ‘other’ package until I got impatient and call up vpost to match them.
Just wanted to advise that I’m having difficulties sourcing products through v-post. I currently have 2 products delivered to v-post in the US but they’re taking a infinite amount of time to match my invoice to my goods. Several emails to advise my invoice and i’m still having problems. Just some advise to be aware, I’m not sure if others have experienced the same. cheers
am seriously considering purchasing a kindle, but can we still download subscribed magazines to the kindle in singapore?
Hi Charles
I finally managed to download kindle onto my iPhone. Just checking – when you register the kindle onto the iPhone, did you use the same email address and password that you use for amazon.com?
Many thanks
Wendy
@Jimmy, Charles, can you text me at 98191007?
Thanks Meng. How do you manage to subscribe to magazines from singapore?
Hey Adrian,
There’re two possible reasons I can think of for your books not showing up in your Kindle:
There maybe other reasons. But the above two are what I can think of right now.
Regards,
Melvin Neo
@meng u r also using your spore cc to buy books from amazon and magazines too?
Hi, We can see the books in the document directory of the Kindle on the computer but can’t find them on the Kindle??
Hi, Have purchased a Kindle but having problems getting the books from the computer to the Kindle. The initial book downloaded but we switched off and then back on and it vanished and we’ve not been able to get another book back on it. Any ideas?
@Jimmy: I just bought a book on 28 Dec and have 2 active magazine subscriptions going on. Amazon has not asked me to verify my US residency (yet).
Thanks, Charles, but when I sign in to itunes store, it says i am only eligible for purchases in the Singapore store and changes “united states store” to “singapore store”. How can I get around this?
Hi Wendy, I am using Kindle for iPhone on my iphone 3G and i downloaded using Apps store login to USA Store account.
Hi
Can anyone help with how I can download the Kindle for iPhone? It won’t let me do it as I’m not authorised to download from US on my iPhone.
Thanks for any advice.
I heard amazon is cracking down on kindle usage outside of the US. Has anyone been notified by amazon to provide proof of US residency? I havent bought the kindle yet, should I get the US version or the global version for use in singapore?
Hey guys/gals,
I was at Takashimaya yesterday and saw a booth selling an ebook reader look so much like our Kindle! When I went near, then I realised it’s done by the guys at iriver. They called it, “iriver e-Story.”
Man, it was heavy! Although the size is about the same as Kindle 2, it’s so much heavier. When I held it on my hand, I was thinking, “Thank God my Kindle 2 is not that heavy!” And to me, the Kindle is definitely of higher quality and a much better build.
This device can read almost all the e-books EXCEPT for Amazon e-books. What a bummer. Because Amazon has the widest range of ebooks and the cheapest by far.
And this device is not cheap. It’s retailing for S$499.
royston does your wireless works in singapore? And do you need to turn on VPN before buying books?
Hi, I just bought a Kindle from amazon.com and it was shipped via vPost (Oregon). I just received it on 14 December 2009… so no problems leh.
When using amazon Gift account, I just like to check is it still necessary we need to turn on VPN to USA when we buy ebooks from amazon for our kindle?
Use the oregon address. I have shipped 2 units. No problems.
Hey Charles,
If they do not ship that, they won’t ship my headphones too.
Anyway, I just spoke with a Singpost staff and asked her especially with regards to the Amazon Kindle. She told me to ship it to Portland Oregon address instead of the Compton California’s. Reason being Compton is very strict with battery stuff. I’d suspect it’s the state of California that is strict, not Compton itself.
So, just ship to the Portland Oregon address.
Melvin u got a point but kindle fits into this item” – batteries contained or pack with equipment”
Hey!
That’s funny. In Vpost, there is a list that states items that are prohibited. The Amazon Kindle is not mentioned. Yes, they did mention “speakers including headphones and earphones”. But I bought my noise cancellation headphone via Amazon and shipped by Vpost.
Here’s the URL to the prohibited list:
https://www.vpost.com.sg/helpdesk/prohibitedItems_pop.html
Erik did u order a kindle and shipped it to vpost usa?
Yes i read from another local blogger that vpost does not allow kindle to be shipped to spore now…. use Borderlinx as recommended by others.
http://client.1md.be/borderlinx/newsletter/christmas/
i wonder if anyone faced any problem shipping Kindle 2 international via VPost to Singapore? I was told that it is prohibited becos’ it contains a magnetised wireless reading device.
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