I have heard it's common to have Amazon orders shipped to post office type places right over the border in Germany. Do similar places exist in France? If so, what are they called? Thanks.
Yes, they are called Poste Restante and you can search for these within Amazon - generally there is no fee to pick up packages there but in cases where the Poste Restante is also the French Post Office there is a fee to pick up each individual package. In Divonne Les Bains, for example, 4 euros per package was the last fee rate I observed (This was a couple of years ago, of course)
in Amazon.fr you can select for all PRIME items (managed by Amazon, no need to be enrolled into PRIME) special delivery points (point relais).
They are post offices, small supermarkets, butcheries, electronic shops..
In the Geneva area there are probably ~100 to choose from, open as well on Sundays. No additional fees or cost are needed.
To verify if a specific seller is shipping to these drop locations, just select an item and on the delivery address search for the point relais ( https://www.amazon.fr/gp/buy/address...pt=1#new-store ) . If not available select another seller.
The other possibility is a personal mail drop address in France but this is expensive.
I order stuff that is sent by Amazon. In that case you don't pay any postage or fee if you have it sent to Poste restante in France (you have to buy for a minimum of 25 Euros).
The advantage of Poste restante over point Relais is that they keep packets for much longer.
I think this is a bit outdated. There has been no fees to pick up at the listed "point de collecte" for the sellers that ship to them in my experience (amazon.fr). As Pdalsantus says you need to see what shippers and items (not certain items) are available through point de collecte. I regularly picked up at Divonne Post until about a month ago when the option to pick up there disappeared and my previously sent item was returned. I've complained to Amazon so hope the Divonne post option returns once again. And I've never had any charges, even for small orders, but check the delivery options by seller as usually you will find a no or low cost one.
If you use La Poste for your point relais then yes, there is a fee and there has long been a fee. Initially it was quite cheap, less than a Euro as I recall but now at least 4 Euros per package.
There are other point relais in the area (i.e. Gex & Divonne) but not all items can be shipped to a Point Relais that isn't also a Post Office - when you select a Point Relais it will indicate whether you can have it shipped there or not.
The cost varies depending on what the item is but I have never paid as much as 4€ to collect a package from the post office in Morteau. The most recent was in May so they may have hiked the prices up a bit since then.
Not only Amazon, but quite a lot of online retailers in France use one of a couple of point relai networks. Indeed, some will only ship to them, rather than using standard parcel services or post. In cases where other options are offered the point relais is nearly always the cheapest available, and no, there is never any fee to pay on collection.
I actually much prefer this method, even when at our French place, as it's much the easiest way, compared with waiting for delivery and/or searching for a missed delivery note then having to go to the post office or parcel depot a day or two later. An email is sent as soon as it's available, so you just pick your time to go collect it.