The promise of free shipping

Halloween has just passed and the U.S. is ready for the holiday season. I popped into a Rite Aid on the way home from work yesterday and the aisles are already filled with wrapping paper, plastic menorahs and Christmas tree lights. For weeks now, I have been receiving retailers’ first edition holiday catalogs,

The Pottery Barn catalog promises “free shipping on over 150 items!” I went to www.potterybarn.com to see if this was the case with online purchases. It is. Both the catalog and the website offer free shipping on the same items. Yet, when I went through the ordering process on www.potterybarn.com, I found that I was being charged $4.95 for a “shipping and process” charge. Interesting.

On the other hand, L.L. Bean shipping is completely free as I learned from the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/technology/08ecom.html). “Bean’s free-shipping offer comes with no minimum purchase requirements. That is in stark contrast to the strings-attached shipping offers used by more than 80 percent of online merchants last year, which left some consumers wondering about the exact meaning of ‘free.’”

Steve Fuller, L. L. Bean’s senior vice president for corporate marketing, says that the company may lose money by implementing this “free shipping” policy. The benefit, though, is that it attracts new customers, like myself. After reading the NY Times article, I visited www.llbean.com and bought something from L.L. Bean for the first time; I finished purchasing my brother a Christmas present for $29.50 and had to pay no shipping or process charge. Will I go back? Yes! Especially to buy more Christmas presents!

Other retailers, like www.oldnavy.com, charge a standard shipping amount for all purchases, and seem to continue to do so throughout the holiday season.

Www.endless.com, www.amazon.com’s online shoe store, claim that overnight shipping is -$5, meaning they will pay customers $5 for every order. Here is the exact policy:
Promotion extended! For a limited time, Overnight Shipping is *negative* $5. That's right, we'll take five dollars off your order for the privilege of shipping overnight to you. We are serious. Enjoy this special promotion while it lasts! Once the promotion is over, you can again enjoy our day-in and day-out offer of FREE Overnight Shipping. Negative five dollar shipping will appear in checkout as a five dollar deduction on your total order. If all items in an order are returned, you will be credited for the total price of the returned items less $5, not the item total before the $5 discount. For example, purchasing a shoe for $100 will result in a $95 order total (before tax if any); if you return it you will be credited $95 + tax.
Feeling that this was too good to be true, I decided to place an order and see for myself. True to its word, www.endless.com did in fact take off $5 from my purchase and did not charge me for shipping! Genius! I will definitely be visiting this website again in the near future.

What other website have free shipping? When I googled “free shipping” the following websites came up:
www.llbean.com
www.shoes.com
www.amazon.com
www.shopbop.com
www.zappos.com
www.PotteryBarnKids.com (interesting, considering my findings)
www.bluenile.com
www.bestbuy.com
Among others…