Secret Santa gift exchange! discussion
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2017 Gift Exchange
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Technical Questions
Sorry if this has been asked:If I give a gift from Amazon US to someone who uses Amazon UK, will there be any issues?
I asked Amazon and they said yes but based on a recommendation in the random chitchat thread, I logged into the Amazon UK site and was able to purchase a gift card which they were successfully able to accept. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Melanie~~ wrote: "Sorry if this has been asked:
If I give a gift from Amazon US to someone who uses Amazon UK, will there be any issues?"
And for individual books, instead of a gift card, here's what was suggested.https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Melanie~~ wrote: "Sorry if this has been asked:
If I give a gift from Amazon US to someone who uses Amazon UK, will there be any issues?"
Vicki wrote: "I asked Amazon and they said yes but based on a recommendation in the random chitchat thread, I logged into the Amazon UK site and was able to purchase a gift card which they were successfully able..."Thanks for all the great legwork, Vicki! You're a gem!
And thanks Heather for answering the same question on Elfster. :)
I'm VERY confused! I joined this group earlier this year ('17), have my person to give gifts to and supposedly have gifts. MY SS has told me I hope I like my books but WHERE ARE THEY? HOW do I send gifts to MY giftee?? 
Ottilee wrote: "I'm VERY confused! I joined this group earlier this year ('17), have my person to give gifts to and supposedly have gifts. MY SS has told me I hope I like my books but WHERE ARE THEY? HOW do I send..."I received an email from Amazon sent by my SS informing me of my gift. I also received an email from Smashwords telling me the same thing. Check the email account you entered when you created your Elfster account.
The person to whom you are supposed to give a gift to, they too should have entered an email address in their profile. This is where you send them their gifts.
Hope this helps. If not, all you can do is contact your SS thru Elfster and ask for help.
This article helped me to send an ebook to my Secret Santa Person :-) http://echoebooks.com/blog/160-giving...
I never sent a gift through amazon before. How do you know if it was successfully sent? Its been days I am just nervous i did it wrong lol
BookReader87 wrote: "I never sent a gift through amazon before. How do you know if it was successfully sent? Its been days I am just nervous i did it wrong lol"You should receive an email stating that the recipient has accepted their gift. If you are unsure that they received the email to begin with, you can send them a reminder.
You also should have received an email from Amazon after you placed the order. It will have the order number on it as well as what you send and to whom you sent it.
Mod
http://echoebooks.com/blog/160-giving..."
That's a big help, thanks!!
Heather- my "person" doesn't have a wish list- should I assume GR "to read" is up to date and purchase gifts from there? I've sent an email but the wish list has still not been updated.
Mod
For anyone interested, I figured out how to gift with a Secret Santa name and message at Riptide Publishing. Here you go:For Riptide, add the book to your cart, then click on the cart at the top right. When your book comes up, go ahead an click "checkout". At the very bottom of the screen is a click option "Gift some or all of these items?" *The customer service rep assured me you could gift up to 10 books to different people at one time* Check that box, then the book(s) in your cart will appear at the very bottom of the page under the gifting option. Click on the book you want to gift and another "Gift this book" box will appear. When you click this one, fields appear under it for the recipients email, senders name (or you can click anonymously and leave it empty) and a message. Once you enter all your gifting info in, click "continue to next step" and checkout as usual.
The recipient will receive the following:
1. Riptide's admin email
2. The name and message you entered in the gifting section
3. Access to the title or gift card you've chosen
If your recipient doesn't have an account, Riptide sets up a new user for them and gives instructions in the email to claim the book. I sent one to myself to be sure.
Mod
For Riptide, add the book to your cart, then click on the cart at the top ..."
Awesome! Thanks!
@Michelle- I made that uhoh with my poor elfster early on. I forgot to make it visible to the exchange group. That's probably the same with your person, especially if they have participated before :)
Lisazj1 wrote: "For anyone interested, I figured out how to gift with a Secret Santa name and message at Riptide Publishing. Here you go:For Riptide, add the book to your cart, then click on the cart at the top ..."
Thanks Lisa! This helps a lot. =)
Can I rant a little bit here ?!? The localisation restrictions on Amazon are really annoying. Second time that I received an ebook gift from the US. I know how to proceed by now : I cannot claim the ebook directly nor exchange it with an egift (well, I can, but it arrives on the US site, so I still can't use it to purchase the ebook). Fortunately, the amazon support is very effective : each time, my marketplace was temporarily transferred to the US and I was then able to download the ebook.
The only downside of that is that all my ebooks from Kindle unlimited are automatically recalled, so I have to get them again.
Smashwords and Riptide don't have the same limitations, granted, but the choice is very limited. When I see all the nice wishes on Elfster, I'm so frustrated not to find them on these sites.
I guess that, next year, I might do like some other elves, ie open an email account under my elf name, purchase the books on Amazon and then send the ebooks from this special email account. It will save me plenty of time and inconvenience. Unless the restrictions are finally dealt with by Amazon **One can only hope**
Rant over, now, LOL !!!
Mod
Second time that I received an ebook gift from the US. I know how to proceed by now : I cannot claim t..."
That actually sounds like a great idea! New elf name with US account. Let me know if it works!
Heather K (dentist in my spare time) wrote: "That actually sounds like a great idea! New elf name with US account. Let me know if it works! "Not gonna take the credit for it, Heather. Some elves are already doing it. Imagine my surprise last year :-) And one of my elves also set up that for this year.
And there are a lot of very good free website that convert file in whatever format that is needed if the giftee doesn't own a kindle reader.
Christelle wrote: "Rant over, now, LOL !!! ..."This is our first Santa Exchange (unless you participated in the July event) that we've been unable to use AllRomance which made it much easier to get around the Amazon restrictions, (I think, I don't remember these issues with ARe).
So I think this first year we're trying to muddle through without ARe and find alternatives for our non-U.S. members.
Thanks for sticking it out and let's 20/20 the alternatives found for next year because it's wonderful when this is a global exchange.
Christelle wrote: "Can I rant a little bit here ?!? The localisation restrictions on Amazon are really annoying. Second time that I received an ebook gift from the US. I know how to proceed by now : I cannot claim t..."
Eeee, how frustrating!
Sorry you're going through this. :'(
~ Lei ~ Reading Is An Adventure ~ wrote: "Christelle wrote: "Rant over, now, LOL !!! ..."This is our first Santa Exchange (unless you participated in the July event) that we've been unable to use AllRomance which made it much easier to g..."
Even if the way AllRomance shut its doors was not very kind on the customers (I hope it was better for the authors), this site was really the best for this exchange.
Bahhhh.....At least, there are ways to gift all around the world and participate to this exchange : it's just a matter of finding the most practical way :-)
Am4u ❀ ~ AprilMarie4u ~ ❀ wrote: "Eeee, how frustrating! Sorry you're going through this. :'( "
You're so sweet, AM <3 The most frustrating is going through the wishlists and not finding a little something to gift. It hurts my inner elf, LOL. It happened with one of the participants and, lucky for me, she had guessed my identity so I sent her by mail a gift I had downloaded on my PC. All is fine at the end, that's the most important :-)
lol, you should be "Jumping Through Hoops Elf" XD I know about that inner elf, I went a little bonkers last year! @.@
Am4u ❀ ~ AprilMarie4u ~ ❀ wrote: "lol, you should be "Jumping Through Hoops Elf" XD I know about that inner elf, I went a little bonkers last year! @.@"
LMAO. I might ask you for advice to find a name for my inner elf for next year ;)
Dreamspinner's just announced it's doing Gift Cards now as well, which will hopefully make things a bit easier again for next year's event!
Cadiva wrote: "Dreamspinner's just announced it's doing Gift Cards now as well, which will hopefully make things a bit easier again for next year's event!"Ohhh, that's awesome! Where did you see this, Cadiva? Did you get an email?
edit: Found it :)
https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/gif...
I'm wondering something. I wanted to gift some members (not my chosen); but their wishlist is empty; however I noticed them thanking secret Santa for a gift or two. Where did Santa get their wishlist from? *confused*
Mod
Sometimes their wishlist is set to the wrong exchange year and only some people can see it, sometimes, if you search their email on Goodreads, they have a wishlist there.
Mod
If you message me, I can help!
Josy wrote: "Cadiva wrote: "Dreamspinner's just announced it's doing Gift Cards now as well, which will hopefully make things a bit easier again for next year's event!"Ohhh, that's awesome! Where did you see ..."
Yep, I'm so pleased!
Cadiva wrote: "Dreamspinner's just announced it's doing Gift Cards now as well, which will hopefully make things a bit easier again for next year's event!"Wooohoo, finally! Thanks Cadiva. =)
I got no indication if my giftee had gotten my books so I went for the Amazon chat and got verification that they have been claimed very quickly. The one good thing about Amazon is that their chat help is usually quick and manage to solve my problems.
So if you unsure about books gifted through Amazon, go the the help section, scroll down to the browse help topics, pick Need more help? and hit Contact us on the right side. There you can pick your order from the list and answer all the other (stupid) drop down menus and hit chat.
Takes little effort to find but easy to use once you remember where it is hidden. =)
Mod
Heather K (dentist in my spare time) wrote: "If you go to your digital orders it says “claimed” or “unclaimed” right next to it."Learn something new every day! Thanks!
Question - there are books on Amazon that I own but also would like to re-purchase and gift. But the gift button doesn't show up - it just gives me the option to download it. Does anyone know a way around this?Thanks!
Melissa wrote: "Question - there are books on Amazon that I own but also would like to re-purchase and gift. But the gift button doesn't show up - it just gives me the option to download it. Does anyone know a way..."Maybe you can ask Amazon support ? It has been very helpful for me this year !!
Christelle wrote: "Melissa wrote: "Question - there are books on Amazon that I own but also would like to re-purchase and gift. But the gift button doesn't show up - it just gives me the option to download it. Does a..."That was my next step. :) Thanks! I'll have to wait till I get home because Amazon won't load at work (hit or miss).
Melissa wrote: "That was my next step. :) Thanks! I'll have to wait till I get home because Amazon won't load at work (hit or miss)."Some support line are better than the others and I have to say that at Amazon, it's really fast and efficient. That's why I don't hesitate to ask :-)
Christelle wrote: "Melissa wrote: "That was my next step. :) Thanks! I'll have to wait till I get home because Amazon won't load at work (hit or miss)."Some support line are better than the others and I have to say..."
I've only contacted them once before, and it didn't make me happy because they said I couldn't use an Amazon gift card to pay for an audible book (audio companion from Amazon!!). Say whuuuuut?! Not the Amazon help desk person's fault, I know. I need to put that experience behind me and chat them up!
Melissa wrote: "I've only contacted them once before, and it didn't make me happy because they said I couldn't use an Amazon gift card to pay for an audible book (audio companion from Amazon!!). Say whuuuuut?! Not the Amazon help desk person's fault, I know. I need to put that experience behind me and chat them up!."LOL : welcome to my word on the French site. You would be amazed by all the unavailable options (I'm so envious when I see the options on other Amazon sites), but yes, like you say, not the support's fault.
Christelle wrote: "Melissa wrote: "I've only contacted them once before, and it didn't make me happy because they said I couldn't use an Amazon gift card to pay for an audible book (audio companion from Amazon!!). Sa..."Out of curiosity, what happens if you go to Amazon.com instead of the French site?
Melissa wrote: "Out of curiosity, what happens if you go to Amazon.com instead of the French site?."Some options are not available because of my localisations (basically, all that is digital, like ebooks or movies : I'm automatically redirected to the French site.). The only way to bypass that is to have a US bank account : I won't go to such extreme, LOL.
I don't use Amazon.com anymore, but when I want to send something non digital to my US friends.
Christelle wrote: "Melissa wrote: "Out of curiosity, what happens if you go to Amazon.com instead of the French site?."Some options are not available because of my localisations (basically, all that is digital, lik..."
That's interesting. So even if you were in the US, opened an Amazon.com account (ignoring bank requirements), you still wouldn't be able to use it once you got back home.
Melissa wrote: "That's interesting. So even if you were in the US, opened an Amazon.com account (ignoring bank requirements), you still wouldn't be able to use it once you got back home. "Maybe it would still work in that instance. When I left the US after living there for one year, I was not using Amazon and I closed my US bank account. If I had known....
I mostly use Amazon for my personal use and for ebooks, so all these restrictions are more a nuisance than an issue. I just don't have access to options such as ebooks loan, ebooks gifting (unless for a French), whispersync, and the French catalog for movies is very poor.
I know the European Community is working on a legislation to make ecommerce on a global basis more open and easier. I cross my fingers it will happen soon :-)
Christelle wrote: "Melissa wrote: "That's interesting. So even if you were in the US, opened an Amazon.com account (ignoring bank requirements), you still wouldn't be able to use it once you got back home. "Maybe i..."
My fingers are crossed too! It's so funny how the law works.
Heather K (dentist in my spare time) wrote: "If you go to your digital orders it says “claimed” or “unclaimed” right next to it."I didn't know about the Digital orders tab in the orders page so that's something new and useful. =P
But no, no info about whether the gift is claimed or not. It does tell me that one book is still waiting delivery, like it should, and the others are marked as gift orders but no other information is given.
Mod
I didn't know about the Digital orders tab in the orders page so t..."
I'll have to screenshot it for you later!
I see that my person has posted that they received their gift but that was posted well before I sent it. Is it possible that I sent my gift to the wrong person? "Thank you for the book! I've heard a lot of great things about it! :-) There is a region restriction, as we talked about on the GR group, but I should have it within 7 days. Thank you!"
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Hi Heather. So my person doesn't have a wishlist on Elfster. I entered her email into GoodReads and did find her profile. But it is set to private so I'm sure I'll give myself away if I friend request her.
Using Elfster, I anonymously asked what the one book she wanted the most for the holidays is. Hopefully that will get a good answer!