Merchants, Do You Want to Participate in Free Shipping Day 2009?

The date for the second annual Free Shipping Day has been set for Thursday, December 17, 2009. Participating merchants will provide free shipping on December 17 and guarantee delivery by Christmas Eve. To participate in Free Shipping Day and have your logo and free shipping offer posted on the home page of FreeShippingDay.com, please fill out this form.

Some of hte over 250 merchants that participated in last years Free Shipping Day include 1-800-Flowers, Aeropostale, American Eagle, Apple Store, Bloomingdales, Brookstone, Charlotte Russe, Coldwater Creek, Create & Barrel, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Discovery Store, Dell, eBags, EBGames, Eddie Bauer, EMS, Endless Shoes and Handbags, Fossil, GameStop, Harry & David, J.Crew, Jockey, JoS A Bank, Kohls, Kmart, Lowe’s, Macy’s, Moosejaw, Mrs. Beasley’s, Music123, Nautica, Neiman Marcus, NB Web Express, New York & Company, Nordstrom, Office Depot, Omaha Steaks, Orvis, Pacsun, ReefGear, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sears, Sephora, Sports Authority, Sur la Table, Target, The Body Shop, Urban Outfitters, West Elm and Zappos.

Recap of Free Shipping Day 2008
In 2007 online shopping peaked on December 10th, fifteen days before Christmas. Seeing this as a bad thing for online shopping, Luke Knowles of the popular money-saving website FreeShipping.org had the idea to create a day late in December when merchants would offer free shipping to shoppers with guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. He hoped that over time this would convince shoppers that they can shop later into December and have their orders arrive in time for the big day, thus benefiting all involved with online shopping. The first annual Free Shipping Day was Thursday, December 18, 2008.

On December 8, 2008 the FreeShippingDay.com website was launched with 25 participating merchants. Over the next ten days hundreds of blogs and websites, newspapers, radio stations and TV networks ran stories about Free Shipping Day. Because of all the media attention Free Shipping Day received, more than 250 merchants ended up participating and the FreeShippingDay.com website had more than 250,000 visitors including 105,000 on Free Shipping Day itself.

The logos of all participating merchants were displayed on the home page of FreeShippingDay.com. Large and small merchants benefited with an increase in traffic and sales. A few merchants emailed us the day after Free Shipping Day 2008 to let us know just how important Free Shipping Day was for their business.

“I’m the owner of Charm Boutique, one of the merchants who took part in Free Shipping Day. I just wanted to let you know that we had our highest visitors ever on the site yesterday which resulted in great online sales as well.”
-Kari Kraichely of Charm Boutique

“Wow! We tripled our business yesterday! It’s 7pm Eastern time and my
entire staff is still here trying to get all the orders processed and
packed.”
- Julie Swatek of ScrapYourTrip.com

Free Shipping Day can quickly become as big of a shopping holiday as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here are a few ways that merchants can make the most out of Free Shipping Day.

6 Tips for Promoting Free Shipping Day

1. Create a special free shipping offer for Free Shipping Day.
2. Let us know about your involvement in Free Shipping Day as soon as possible so that we can add your offer to the FreeShippingDay.com homepage.
3. Send an email to your newsletter subscribers promoting your “Free Shipping Day” offer.
4. Advertise your “Free Shipping Day” offer on your website.
5. Send out a press release about your involvement in Free Shipping Day to get in on the media excitement about this new shopping day. Luke Knowles, the founder of Free Shipping Day would be happy to provide you with a quote for your press release.
6. Use whatever social channels (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace…) are available to you to promote your involvement in Free Shipping Day.

1 Comment to Merchants, Do You Want to Participate in Free Shipping Day 2009?

Josh
November 17, 2009

Thanks. This is great!

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