Learn How Can Free Shipping Online Business Increase Sales

Every year, news reports include pictures of the long lines that form at stores on the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday). Often those same new outlets mention the many clicks that were made on far more than one computer mouse just four days later (on Cyber Monday). Those two big shopping days have obtained widespread recognition.
Now online merchants would like to make Free Shipping Day at least as popular as both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What is “Free Shipping Day”? It is a day chosen by online merchants, a day close to Christmas. In 2008, “Free Shipping Day” fell on December 18th.

The online merchants who elect to participate in Free Shipping Day agree to free customers from shipping charges, if they order one or more items on that particular Day. Because Free Shipping Day falls close to Christmas, the participating merchants also promise to deliver by Christmas Day any item that has been ordered on Free Shipping Day.

Online merchants want to underscore the fact that access to the Internet can ease concerns about last minute Christmas shopping.. With that aim in mind, those merchants have promised to reward online shoppers who wait until the last minute before doing their Christmas shopping.

Merchants who decide to take part in the scheduled Free Shipping Day do not hide that participation. Instead, wise merchants plaster their web pages with lots of reminders about the benefits available to customers who order items on the Free Shipping Day. The wisest merchants also have their online business listed on a new website—a website that focuses on the ways online shoppers can get free shipping.

That website, www.freeshipping.org, arose in response to the demand for free shipping. Online merchants have come to appreciate the degree to which the mention of “free shipping” can tempt a shopper to visit a particular web page. Offers of free shipping have demonstrated as much drawing power among potential online shoppers as the traditional sales ad (from a brick and mortar store).

Because merchants would like to enjoy the benefits of free shipping on more than just one day, online merchants have explored different ways by which to relieve their customers of expected shipping charges. A visit to the website www.freeshipping.org acquaints online shoppers with the resources for finding merchants, merchants that offer free shipping.

Some merchants, for example, have chosen to offer free shipping coupons. Other merchants have chosen instead to make a free shipping code available to reliable and steady customers. At freeshipping.org, an online shopper can find details on merchants that have used either free shipping coupons or a free shipping code, in order to entice visitors to their online store front.

Another avenue by which online merchants can use the benefits of free shipping to an advantage involves use of shipping discounts. Stores that have customers who like to purchase in bulk often reward the customers who adhere to that particular buying trend. Those online stores promise discounted shipping to customers who have placed a bulk order on some item.

When a customer buys an item in bulk, that customer must obviously pay a sizable amount for that order. The online merchant can reward that customer by offering a discounted shipping charge. Some online merchants have elected to use a different type of reward system. They have promised free shipping on orders that fall above a certain amount, typically $75 to$100.

Free shipping gives the online merchant an added way to promote particular items. Years ago, when a store wanted customers to buy a certain item, it would display that item in an eye-catching way. That display would draw the attention of the customers. Today, the offers of free shipping draw the attention on online shoppers.

If an online merchant has an item that he or she wants to sell quickly, that merchant can advertise free shipping on any orders that include that same item. In cases where a merchant hopes to clear out all of goods with a certain brand name, then that merchant, too, can make use of free shipping offers. That merchant posts online the promise of free shipping, any time that the brand of concern has been included in a given order.

Sometimes, an online merchant has been approached by a credit card company. That company might have agreed to reward the merchant, if he or she could invite more online shoppers to use a particular charge card at a certain virtual storefront. In that case, the merchant would want to consider making free shipping available to customers who charged for their purchase with a particular type of charge card.

Finally, the online merchant, like merchants every where, always welcomes returning customers. Offers of free shipping can provide online merchants with assurance that at least some of their customers will return again to the web page on which they previously discovered an appealing item. An online merchant can advertise free shipping to returning customers.

As more merchants discover how to take advantage of free shipping offers, customers can expect to see an expanded use of that powerful marketing tool. Perhaps, astute online marketers will design even more ways by which offers of free shipping can be used to lure shoppers to a certain virtual storefront.

Online merchants will no doubt compete for customers who want free shipping, in the same way that store owners now compete for shoppers who are in search of a bargain

Posted in: