Tutorial - Setting Up Your Amazon Account

Before you start to shop at Amazon, you may want to setup your account first. This will make things a lot simpler during the checkout stage as all information will have been provided before hand. This is not mandatory, since you can also provide all the required information when you're checking out.

But let us go through this simple one-time setup to add

• Payment information
• Shipping information

Start by going to your Account -

And then go to Add a Credit or Debit Card -

From then on, just follow instructions on screen to add your credit card to it.

About credit card fees and what not. If you're based in Singapore (like me), posting a charge in a foreign currency attracts certain fees. As far as I know, CIMB charges 2.5% (including MasterCard fees) while Maybank charges 2.2% (including MasterCard fees). This will surely change in the future but I believe this is correct as it stands right now. In my experience, Standard Chartered Bank charges the most exorbitant fees so I'll avoid that.

There are also various credit card schemes where they offer rebates. I know of a FRANK card by OCBC which offers 6% rebates for online purchases, if your total spending exceeds SGD500. This post is not about which is the best credit card to hold on to so please do your own research.

Now that you have sorted out your payment, the next step is to setup your shipping address. It's known as 'Address Book' on 'Your Account' page -

Now, if you recall, you may have already provided an address earlier when you create your account. If you do, it will appear in your Address Book. You may want to consider adding your office address to it because you may want to consider shipping stuff directly to the office instead.

You're now ready to shop!