Personally, I think that if you live in france (or have for at least a few months ) you should know enough french to be able to use Amazon.fr without resorting to an English version.
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Just been on the fr site, didnât notice how to read it in English, how do you do that?
@Mark Not everybody has the talent to be good enough to avoid silly pitfalls when ordering things. My French is now worse than it was when I came here to live and work 21 years ago. What I normally do now is look on Amazon UK and then copy or take note of what I want to find it on FR or DE.
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The German Amazon site does have a drop down to select the language but that option so far as I could see when I looked for it briefly the other day after this was first mentioned appears to be absent.
I tend to look on the UK site for further info in English but then order from the .fr site. Maybe it would be possible for @james to include the German site on the Amazon affiliate drop down menu on the top bar.
I went through a phase a few years back of repeatedly signing up to Prime by mistake when ordering things because theyâre crafty when it comes to these âwant this item tomorrow? Click here (then in the smallest print imaginable something about a prime trial)â, type things to get you to upgrade, they also pre-ticked the prime delivery in the delivery options at one stage too. In English Iâd spot it immediately but when youâre reading and translating and understanding and processing things in your head because itâs in a language that is not your first it is very easy to miss little details so I agree with you completely @David_Spardo. If everything was straightforward it would be one thing, but Amazon love these little irritants at times.
Sorry David, I just type what I want in the search box in English. That certainly works, but you are right, the text is in French.
Like the time I ordered seresto tick collars for the dogs which last for 8 months and then couldnât understand why I received another order a month later. Iâd managed to tick the repeat order box. Amazon helpline sorted it.
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For us, having/paying for France Prime became a necessity since we live here full time. We dropped our US prime since we canât take advantage of much. (Using a VPN to access US prime content became aggravating as their system would detect the VPN). So on that end like movies/books/music we no longer had use. As far as shopping DIY supplies, I find the France Amazon site useful for price comparison and also just plain utility. (If youâve ever tried searching for a specific item on BricoMarche site vs Amazon , youâll find that amazon can translate what you are searching for but in BricoMarche many times you need to know the French term for the item) also French Prime will pay for itself quickly. Sorry for the long answer, but to your original question, you can add a French address to your US account, but you canât utilize it much for orders. You can use the same email address, but you are essentially setting up a separate account on the .fr site
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I have a UK and a French Prime account and also have an Amazon.com and Amazon.de account but no prime as it isnât worth it for the few times I use it. Sometimes .de is much cheaper than .fr but after shipping costs it is less advantageous, although my son is in Munich so I have him down for local deliveries when it is suitable (ie if he is visiting soon or we are going there).
Amazon Prime is moderately useful for sending things to my family in the UK and for the UK video account but I may let it lapse this year. My VPN (actually smart DNS) does let me spoof Amazon and iPlayer to watch UK content and Netflix where I am registered in the USA. Switching your Prime video account is cumbersome, mind and not possible to flip-flop to get wider choice. However I found that there are far more French films with subtitles in English if I am registered outside of France.
To the OP, much as I would prefer to shop locally, in general the selection, stock levels and sheer variety of goods available via Amazon make it pretty essential still, although after Brexit prices have risen even on the non-UK sites where goods are coming from EU warehouses. Maybe down to lower volumes of some items or just caught up in the bureaucratic morass, who knows?