How to buy goods in America in 2026

Step 1. How does it work?

In order to shop in the USA and receive your purchases in your country, first of all, you need to choose a посредник company.

Mail forwarding (or «your address abroad», an intermediary) is a service in which you make purchases yourself and use the overseas warehouse addresses of the intermediary company.

Prostobox.com is a mail forwarder that provides each customer with a free personal address in the USA for receiving, storing, and further shipping your purchases.

Everything is simple: just complete a quick registration on our website, fill out your profile, and get your personal address in the USA!

We also have the “Purchase with a buyer” service, where our professional staff can buy the item for you if you do not have a foreign card.

It is time to start placing your first orders in US stores!

Step 2. What do you need to place orders in US stores?

First of all, in order to shop in the USA on your own, you need to have a personal payment card to pay for purchases. American stores accept Visa or Mastercard cards. But it is important that yours was not issued by a sanctioned bank. If you have an active foreign PayPal account, you can use it for payment. Please note: Russian PayPal accounts currently do not work, so you need to use a PayPal account registered in another country.

To buy goods in American online stores, we recommend opening a dollar card at a foreign bank – in this case you pay directly in dollars and do not lose anything on conversion. Although, of course, you can also make purchases with a card in your country's currency and top up the balance in your personal account in tenge or Belarusian rubles (relevant for Kazakhstan and Belarus). The main thing is that the card must have the option to make online purchases enabled (you can check with your bank).

To purchase with an operator, a Russian bank card with which you can top up the balance of your personal account will be enough. You can also top up your balance with cryptocurrency.

Step 3. How and where to shop?

There are a huge number of stores in the USA where you can find literally anything. On our website you will find a list of popular options to get started, but you are not limited – you can order from any store of your choice.

The process of placing an order in American online stores usually looks like this:

• registration (email and password)
• entering the delivery address (the address of our warehouse specified by you)
• adding payment information (your card details)
• selecting products and payment
• waiting for the order to be shipped to the warehouse

Usually, the store ships the package to our warehouse within a few days. You can find detailed step-by-step instructions for placing orders in specific stores here. In general, the process is almost the same in practically all American online stores.

At the end of the article, we will look at examples of how to place an order on Amazon and Macy’s.

Step 4. The order in the store has been placed, what next?

In essence, the most difficult and scary part is already behind you. Now all that remains is to wait until the store (seller) ships the order and provides a tracking number to track the package within the USA.

Where can you track tracking numbers (packages within the USA)?

99% of all purchases placed in US stores are shipped by the three largest delivery services in America:

• USPS — the state postal service of the USA (United States Postal Service);
• UPS — an American commercial company (United Parcel Service);
• Fedex — another commercial delivery service (Federal Express).

If the store shipped your order with some other service, you can always track the order in the store account.

After the store (seller) provides the tracking number, you need to enter it into expected packages with us. As soon as the package is accepted by the warehouse, it will appear in your personal account (you will receive an SMS notification or an email about this).

Step 5. The package is at the warehouse, what now?

There are two options here.

• Immediately after the first order arrives at the warehouse, create a package for shipment;
• Wait for your other purchases and combine them all together into one package (consolidate).

Consolidation is the combining of several packages (orders) into one single package.

The second option can be called more profitable, since the greater the weight of your package, the more favorable the shipping terms. Here you need to take into account that for all delivery services without exception, the first kilogram is always the most expensive, while each subsequent one is already significantly cheaper.

We recommend the first method (immediate shipment) if you are not planning to buy anything else in the near future and do not need to combine several orders into one package.

Step 6. The package needs to be shipped, but how?

First of all, you need to choose a delivery service. You can estimate the shipping cost in advance and choose the delivery service in our shipping calculator. You can read in detail about each delivery service, maximum weight limits, and so on in the questions and answers section.

Once you have chosen a delivery service, you can proceed to creating the package and sending it for assembly.

When the packages have arrived at the warehouse (all the ones you want to ship now) and appeared in the Purchases at the warehouse tab, you need to select the packages and add them to the package being created (the «Add to package» button).

Step 7. The final and most pleasant step

After the package is shipped from the warehouse, an international tracking number will appear next to it, which can be used to track the movement of the package. After the package becomes available for pickup, you will receive a notification (an email notification in your mailbox or, for example, an SMS message about the package being handed over to the courier). To receive the package, you must have identity documents with you (passport).

We recommend checking the contents of the package and the condition of the items in the presence of postal operators or delivery service employees. After checking the package, take it home and enjoy your new purchases!

As you can see from this article, shopping in the USA with delivery to Russia, Belarus (and other countries) is really simple and easy. If some points are still unclear to you, you can always ask your questions in tickets in your personal account or ask an operator in the online chat.

Now let’s take a closer look at how to place an order on Amazon

How to register on Amazon

1. Open the Amazon website in your browser

2. In the upper right corner of the page, hover over «Hello. Sign In Account&Lists». In the menu that appears, click the «Sign here» link

3. After that, in the window that opens, you need to complete the registration.

Click the “Create your Amazon account” button

4. Next, you need to enter your details

Enter your first and last name in Latin letters. We recommend entering an email address rather than a phone number, since Russian numbers may be blocked for sending notifications, and specifically an email address (it is also better to choose not Russian mail and Yandex domains, but, for example, international Gmail). You also need to create a password and repeat it.

Click the Continue button

5. After that, you need to verify your email address

Check your email and enter the OTP code in the empty field.

When the code is confirmed, you will get access to shopping! You are now a fully registered Amazon shopper. Congratulations!

Searching for products on Amazon and buying them

1. You can search for a product either by category (books, electronics) or by name or brand - to do this, just use the Search bar.

As an example, let’s look at buying an excellent gift and the trendiest Stanley mug.

On the right side of the product page there is a noticeable yellow «Add to cart» button, by clicking it the item you like is instantly added to the cart.

So, feel free to click the button and move on to reviewing what we are going to buy.

2. Next, check the purchase amount, the color, and click the “Proceed to checkout (1 item)” button

3. Now we proceed to entering the delivery address. Click the “Add a new delivery address” button

4. In the window that opens, you need to enter the warehouse address from your personal account in our service.

This is the same address for delivery of your purchases that you received from us. Fill out the shipping address form. It is very important to fill in all fields correctly and completely.

Example of filled-in address fields:

5. You are almost done! In the window that opens, you only need to enter your foreign card details.

Enter the number, cardholder name, expiration date, and the CVC code from the back of the card. At the end, click Add your card.

6. After that, click Use this payment method and that’s it! Done! Your order has been placed on Amazon, will be processed soon, and will arrive at our warehouse.

You can track all movements of your item in your personal account. Happy shopping on Amazon!

How to place an order on Macy’s

1. Go to https://www.macys.com.
2. In the upper right corner, click Sign In → then Create Account.

Start shopping with Prostobox.com