More on "Free Shipping"

In the previous post we talked about how "Free Shipping" is increasingly becoming a 'must have', especially around the Holiday Season.

Here are some recent articles that provide additional, interesting information on this topic.

• More top 100 online retailers offer free shipping (Internet Retailer)
  Almost 70% of the top 100 online retailers in the US offer free shipping (and others offer "almost free" shipping, such as $1 shipments). The number is growing and offers become more aggressive and more broadly applied to the product catalog. Remember that consumers have one wallet: you are competing for the same "holiday budget" that the "big guys" of e-commerce are after. So what they do is indeed relevant.
• Free Shipping Motivates Holiday Shoppers (Internet Retailer comments on Forrester Research study)
  More evidence that free shipping is a determining factor is deciding where to shop online.
• Pinching Pennies Online for the Holidays (eMarketer)
  A look at how shrinking budgets are affecting gift buying behaviors for the 2008 Holiday Season.