Secret Santa Anonymous Shipping

December 3, 2009 4:17 PM

I would like to ship a gift to my family secret santa from amazon.com, but I can't figure out how to do it anonymously.

I looked at their help files and it says you can't ship anonymously to prisons which implies you can do it to other addresses. Does anyone have experience with this?

Note, we don't do a reveal until later, so just having my name on the order would suck. Also, I really want to use Amazon.com because I get free shipping and therefore there would be more bang for my buck in terms of the spending limit.

posted by anonymous to Shopping (12 answers total)

Have you considered using a third party seller who sells on Amazon, rather than Amazon itself? You can request that the packing slip be left out. When I send a book from party A (you) to another person (your secret santa), MY address is the return address. You do need to contact the prison and get their exact requirements for packages sent so that they do not return it. (All of the above advice is for books. Contact the third party seller of othe merch to see if what I've said applies.)
posted by thebrokedown at 4:29 PM on December 3, 2009

Dang, WHEN are we getting an edit function? Here's an anecdote from today, in fact. I got an order to send a book titled "Becoming Orgasmic" to a church. It crossed my mind that I might be being used to prank the pastor there because the only identifying information is for my store on Amazon. The recipient might never know who actually ordered the book.
posted by thebrokedown at 4:37 PM on December 3, 2009

You can set up the recipient's address as a shipping address, and it will show their name and address on the outside label.
posted by Night_owl at 4:44 PM on December 3, 2009

Can you ship it to someone else who will hand it off to the recipient?
posted by sugarfish at 4:53 PM on December 3, 2009

If you say it's a gift when you're checking out, the receipt will be in an envelope saying "Don't ruin the surprise!" or some such. So long as you trust the person not to peek, you should be fine.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:02 PM on December 3, 2009 [2 favorites]

You could get someone else to send it on your behalf.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:29 PM on December 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

Knowing what the item is might help - I'd suggest that perhaps the item can be found in a store near the recipient, and shipping and anonymity can be negotiated. Times are tough, local businesses might be willing to compete with Amazon.
posted by peagood at 7:31 PM on December 3, 2009

I might be missing something, but: couldn't you create a new account with amazon with a new gmail account eg [e-mail] and then send the amazon item as a gift (no receipt) and the shipping and billing address as the recipient's?
posted by kch at 7:41 PM on December 3, 2009

Did you call amazon and ask? It seems like a question they are in the best position to answer.
posted by brainmouse at 8:08 PM on December 3, 2009

Ship the package to a friend or neighbor. Once there, unpack the box, and then repack it using gift wrap/cute decor/whatever.

You or a friend can then drop it off at your house when you know your family is not around.
posted by unexpected at 8:21 PM on December 3, 2009

Buy a e-mail gift card, e-mail it to a new e-mail address, then use it yourself to order the item for your person.
posted by Sallyfur at 9:02 PM on December 3, 2009

If I read anonymous correctly, the whole point of sending it somewhere other than home is to avoid the recipient knowing who his or her Secret Santa is. Even if it arrived in "don't look in here, it's a Christmas present" packaging, its very arrival would tip off the recipient to the giver's identity as someone who lives in the same house (spoiling half the fun).

Apart from the shipping issue, which has been thoroughly addressed, I wonder if you're also asking about browsing Amazon anonymously. Wouldn't be much fun if the gift recipient shares your computer with you and found a link to the product page in your browser history. Many browsers these days include a "private browsing" mode (check the menus) that doesn't leave any traces from the session while it runs.

Of course you'll need to be logged into Amazon to make the purchase, and they track all your activity on the site and feed it back to you (in the form of "items you recently viewed" and "other products you may like" lists). Private browsing mode won't help with this. If your recipient shares an Amazon account with you, this could also be an issue. He or she is likely also doing Christmas shopping now and could stumble across it by accident. Amazon does allow you to selectively remove items from your account history, so I recommend you clean up after yourself. For maximum security, create a whole new account for this purchase and be sure you log out when you're done. Turning off private browsing mode will log you out automatically from any sites you may be using.

Hope the surprise goes well for you!
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:28 AM on December 4, 2009