Naira devaluation: How it affects your online shopping at Amazon

Some Nigerians like to shop online for stuff and some don't like to restrict themselves to just local websites as they get to shop online also at US shopping websites such as Amazon, eBay, BestBuy and others.

I normally buy stuff at times online at Amazon and one of the reasons why I love shopping with them is that they have almost everything one can buy. The second reason why I love shopping at Amazon is because it is one of the few US shopping sites that accept Nigerian issued cards whether in Naira or foreign currency.

Last time I bought something on Amazon using my Naira card was about 5 months ago and when my bill was calculated, I ntoiced that the exchange rate used was at about N170 to 1 USD. Recently, however, I tried buying an email gift card from Amazon and noticed that the exchange rate was at about N187 to one US dollar - The Nair has lost considerable value!

It seems that this is one of the negative effects of CBN's recently devaluation of the Naira - It has made is more costly for online shoppers to buy things from abroad.

Shopping on US websites from Nigeria and paying in Naira means you are going to pay more than you usually did in the past and the end result is that end users will end up spending more money for getting the same items.

As an online shopper at Amazon, the Naira devaluation has made it more costly to buy things on Amazon since a Nigerian would have to spend more Naira to purchase items listed on the online store. Amazon US store has their items priced in US dollars and so each time a Nigerian tries to use his Naira Visa or Mastercard to make payments on Amazon, he would be charged at a much higher exchange rate than was the case about 2 months ago. Thanks to the CBN and the Nigerian government.