If you live in the States, you probably know (and love) Amazon for how easy it is to click and have something show up at your doorstep. For those of us who live in Mexico, we rarely know such conveniences. Amazon in Mexico? HA!
Amazon.com.mx (Mexico Amazon) existed, but was nothing more than an ebook store…until just recently.
In the past, if you ordered anything from Amazon.com or most any other U.S. based retailer, your best case scenario was that your product would get held up in Cancun customs clearing. This would mean a trip to Cancun to spring your package free while paying import duties. Not exactly convenient.
Well, a few months ago Amazon Mexico made the move from ebooks to a full product line. Many of the products still ship from the States and require duties to be paid, BUT Amazon has worked this out for you. When you get to the checkout the duties are added automatically and Amazon handles all the customs paperwork. Additionally, there are a number of sellers in Amazon that ship from within Mexico and are free of duties and customs slowdowns. Just look for anything fulfilled by Amazon.com.mx.
Ordering from Amazon.com.mx is pretty awesome news, but the cherry on top is that Amazon didn’t do all this work just to benefit Amazon.com.mx. They applied all their knowledge of Mexico customs to the U.S. site too. Now you can log into your U.S. Amazon.com account, fill your cart, and put in your Mexico address when you check out! 
Amazon will calculate the customs duties at checkout. While there are a limited number of vendors that support international shipping, these vendors do have a huge product selection. Plus, Amazon makes it very easy to filter which products are available – just look for the International Shipping filter and check AmazonGlobal. Here is an example of a filtered search; quite a lot of products you can get!
I live in the jungle and wanted to test this out, so I ordered an electronics product that cost $52.00 USD. Amazon added an additional $8.58 (16.5%) in import duties and a small shipping charge. I clicked order and the wheels began to turn. Shortly after placing my order I received my UPS tracking number. I was able to watch my package being driven by truck from the New England area all the way down to Akumal. After about 10 days UPS showed up at my doorstep with a box wrapped in familiar black and orange Amazon tape. Pretty cool!
As Amazon gets the Mexico engine running you can expect them to connect with more local vendors, thereby increasing the selection. Even with Amazon Prime I still had to pay a nominal shipping fee. Regardless, the total shipped price (with shipping and duties) was still about half what I would have paid to purchase the same item at a local electronics store here in Mexico.
So, don’t be shy, go ahead give it a try. You can probably even order stuff in time for Christmas!
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