Order from an Amazon wishlist and have it delivered to their address

September 7, 2014 12:01 PM

I just tried to purchase something for someone from their Amazon.co.uk wishlist. I pressed the ‘Add to Basket’ button next to the item, which then turned into a ‘Proceed to Checkout’ button. I pressed this, then it asked me to log in, then it prompted me to select a delivery address. Which is stupid, as I clearly want it to be delivered to whatever address the person who set up the wishlist specified. But that’s not an option. What am I doing wrong here?
posted by kyten to Shopping (11 answers total)

There's the possibility that you buy something from a wishlist, have it sent to you, and you give the item yourself. I've done this loads of times with my kids. They come up with wishlists of what they want, I buy it, then I wrap the stuff and give it to them.
posted by kinetic at 12:08 PM on September 7, 2014

Two possible options:

1) They haven't attached an address to their wishlist, so it doesn't appear in the addresses to select.

2) they haven't enabled third-party sharing, so their address isn't passed to a supplier that is just using Amazon as a storefront, rather than a stockist. Is the item you're trying to buy provided by amazon itself?
posted by halcyonday at 12:10 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Are you sure their address isn't there among the addresses from which to choose? I literally just did this on Amazon two days ago, and the gift recipient's address was listed, but mixed in with the usual addresses I use. It wasn't listed as the first one, either -- I had to look for it.
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:15 PM on September 7, 2014

Response by poster:

Is the item you're trying to buy provided by amazon itself?

Yes.

Are you sure their address isn't there among the addresses from which to choose?

I see three addresses: my home address, my work address, and an Amazon storage locker I once used. No others.
posted by kyten at 12:20 PM on September 7, 2014

I misunderstood you, sorry. According to Amazon, when creating a wishlist your mailing address is confidential: "The shipping address you select will remain confidential. Gift givers will only see the name, city and state."

I'd email amazon and ask.
posted by kinetic at 12:43 PM on September 7, 2014

On this person's main Wishlist page, under the title of the wishlist, does it say:

This list is for: NAME Birthday: DATE
Dispatch to: NAME, LOCATION

I can provide a screenshot if this is confusing.
posted by muddgirl at 2:44 PM on September 7, 2014

Response by poster:

On this person's main Wishlist page, under the title of the wishlist, does it say:

This list is for: NAME Birthday: DATE
Dispatch to: NAME, LOCATION

It has the first line but not the second.
posted by kyten at 2:53 PM on September 7, 2014

I'm pretty confident this means that the list owner hasn't set up a shipping address in their List Profile. The list owner needs to go to their List page, click on "List Actions" on the right-hand set of tabs, then click "Update List Profile." They can set their shipping address there.

I think the shipping address used to be automatically set but now Amazon has the default as no shipping address.
posted by muddgirl at 3:36 PM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

(I'm pretty confident because I checked this on my own wishlist.)
posted by muddgirl at 3:37 PM on September 7, 2014

Yeah I just checked on Amazon.co.uk, if I create a new wishlist, the default is that it has no address. Silly but there you go.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:23 AM on September 8, 2014

I think the philosophy is that I may want a wishlist that my friends/family can buy things off of, but not strangers. Friends/family would know my address and could enter it manually. By defaulting to "no shipping address," it's defaulting towards privacy even though the address isn't displayed.
posted by muddgirl at 2:34 PM on September 8, 2014