First, a disclaimer: I have not actually ordered anything from Amazon Japan, but I went through the steps last night, and it seems like it's possible to place an order and have it shipped to the U.S.. However, it looks like you can only order certain items (books, cds, DVDs, and videos), and only those that are being sold directly through Amazon, not through 3rd party sellers. Furthermore, international shipping to North America (for books and videos) starts at ￥2,700 ($24.30), and is ￥300 ($2.70) for each additional item. So, this will probably make it a pretty unappealing option for all but the most motivated (or well-heeled) buyers.
With that out of the way, here's what I think has to be done to order from Amazon Japan.
1.) Figure out the characters for some products that you'd like to purchase (easier said than done, I'll admit). Here are the characters for Shiba Wanko (しばわんこ), shiba inu (柴犬), and Shi-Ba Magazine (シーバ) to get you started.
2.) Go to the Amazon Japan Homepage, and enter the characters into the search field. Search as you would normally.
3.) The Google language tools are your friend. Copy the URL of your search's results page into the "Translate a Web Page" field on the Google Language Tools page. Select "Japanese to English." This will provide a pretty good translation of the results page of your search (at least good enough that you can basically figure out what you're looking at, e.g., "Oh, it's a calendar!" Or, "Oh, it's a puzzle!").
4.) Add items to your shopping cart as usual. This button seems to be translated clearly, so you shouldn't have any trouble recognizing it.
5.) Proceed to the checkout as usual, and there will be options to see the checkout pages in English. When you're asked to enter your address info, there is a little blue link in the upper left for "international" orders. You'll need to click this in order to enter your address correctly (you'll know when to look for it, because your zip code won't fit in the field). Hopefully, everything should be pretty easy from this point forward.
6.) Don't forget, DVDs are region-specific, so unless you have a region-free DVD player, you probably won't be able to play DVDs that are purchased from Japan.
If you actually order something, let me know how it goes.
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