There will be no shortage of free standard shipping offers from retailers this Thursday.
The next few days are traditionally the days when gifts shipped standard delivery can make it to recipients in time for Christmas, and marketers have seized on these deadlines in recent years as an opportunity to promote limited-time free shipping deals.
In fact, Thursday marks the second annual “Free Shipping Day,” a marketing tactic that Luke Knowles, the founder of FreeShipping.org and FreeShippingDay.com, said he came up with last year to spur more online shopping in the days leading up to Christmas. “We are trying to change shopper habits so they will shop later online into December,” Mr. Knowles said.
This year, about 700 merchants are advertising their free shipping deals on the FreeShippingDay affiliate site and are participating in the new shopping event, up from about 250 last year. To participate, retailers must offer guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. Other discount sites are also joining the promotion. Shop It To Me, which helps consumers find deals on clothing, for instance, plans to feature retailers participating in the promotion in the communication it sends to users that day.
While some notable big retailers like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart are currently absent from the FreeShippingDay promotion site, they are offering their own free shipping deals on Thursday. A spokeswoman for Walmart.com, for instance, said its free shipping deals can be found here.
A spokeswoman for Amazon.com, meanwhile, said that the site won’t be advertising on FreeShippingDay but that its site offers free shipping on retail orders bought from Amazon directly of $25 or more year-round (Thursday is its deadline for getting the free shipping in time for Christmas). Some retailers are also offering their free shipping deals beyond Thursday. JCPenney.com, for instance, is offering free shipping on purchases of $25 or more through Friday.
The spur to encourage last-minute online shopping comes as many consumers appear to be procrastinating about their holiday shopping more now than in the recent past. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2009 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch last week, the average person had completed 46.7 percent of his or her holiday shopping by the second week of December, less than the 47.1 percent completed by this time last year and the lowest percentage since 2004.
Still, consumers concerned with getting the best deals need to be aware of retailers’ particular deadlines and should do some due diligence when it comes to free shipping offers. Some of the retailers offering “free shipping day” promotions have minimum order requirements or exclude certain items from the promotions.
Also, the shipping deals aren’t always the most generous offerings. “Don’t just necessarily focus on free shipping because sometimes percent-offs can be better deals overall,” said Loren Bendele, chief executive officer of Savings.com. He suggested looking for deals that combine percent-offs with free shipping or trying to combine the deals yourself by finding and using the savings codes for both types of deals.
What are your last-minute holiday shopping and shipping strategies?
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3b1c7727af8bfbb296a123cb0b16b99e