Free Shipping Offers Steady - Week of 12/13/2008

This week the number of companies offering unconditional free shipping held steady at 20% of our top 100 retailers. Overall the number of free shipping offers is down slightly from last week. See chart below (click chart to see bigger version).



We've seen a couple of switches back and forth this week amongst competitors.

Home Depot dropped a conditional free shipping at $149 offer, while competitor Lowes upped their offer from conditional at $49 to unconditional.

Likewise, last week Golfsmith offered free shipping at a $99 threshold, and now offers no shipping offers. But competitor Dick's Sporting Goods who had offered nothing last week now matches Golfsmith's offer from last week - a $99 threshold.

Cyber Monday Best Practices - 2008 vs. 2007

Kent Allen from The Research Trust and I have put together an overview of some of the tools and tactics marketers used for Cyber Monday.

Check out the slide show for insights and visuals from 100 top internet retailers, with comparisons to 2007.



If you want to download as a PowerPoint click here then File > Download presentation as > PPT.

Site Down? Bring Them Back with Email

A lot of retail sites experienced problems with high volume on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

When a site puts up their "temporarily unavailable page" why not capture email? I think consumers would find it very convenient to get notified when you site is available. Sure everyone wishes it was never down in the first place, but at least don't make them keep checking if you're up. Tell them with email.

Of course if you do this, you'll want to be clear whether you are asking permission to notify them when the site is available, or to give them a lifetime subscription to your email. I think most consumers will expect the former.

Free Shipping Madness

Free shipping has taken hold at many of the top retailers.

In tracking the E-Tailing Group 100 index, the number of sites offering unconditional free shipping hit a seasonal high this week. Other categories of free shipping increased as well this week.




Some of the retailers who have only recently offered unconditional free shipping include:

Ann Taylor
Polo
Gymboree
ShopNBC
PBS
Overstock
Fossil
Tiffany
Sephora
GNC
Office Depot
Staples

Sephora Launches Customer Intelligence Test

This week Sephora's free shipping offers

1. Unconditional Free Shipping if you type a promo code (on the left of their home page)

2. Free Shipping if you spend over $50, no promo code required (on the right hand side)

I can just imagine the discussions that led to this strategy.

Cyber Monday & Black Friday Roundup

I haven't had much time to analyze the activity this weekend, but here are some snapshots for you all.

The following slide shows show the home pages for the E-Tailing Group's 100 Index.

Note: If you read this in a feed reader or FeedBurner email, you may not see the presentations below, and will need to go the the live site.

CyberMonday 2008

PowerPoint Download - or GoogleDocs below.




CyberMonday 2008

The Picasa Album below has several hundred more sites. (Click on the image to go to the full album.)

2008-12-01

CyberMonday - Compare 2008 to 2007

PowerPoint Download - or GoogleDocs below.



Black Friday 2008

PowerPoint Download - or GoogleDocs below.

Free Shipping Index - 11/22/08

The number of free shipping offers this past week have increased quite a bit with 46% offering free shipping (either unconditional or tied only to what you spend).

I've also looked at comparing department stores to the prior year, and found that there is less free shipping this year (see end of this post).




The threshold spend for free shipping has decreased from last week (see chart below).





Some of the changes for this week (11/22 compared to 11/15):

New Free Shipping Offers This Week with conditions (most have $ threshold)
Armani Exchange - $100
J.C. Penney's $49
Macy's $99
Best Buy - $99
Bed Bath & Beyond - $100
Cooking.com $99
American Girl - unconditional
FAO Schwartz $120
Cabela's $99

Retailers with More Generous Free Shipping Offers
The Avenue - $100 to $75
Sony Style - $100 to unconditional
Staples was $50 now unconditional


Retailers with More Stingy Free Shipping Offers
Ann Taylor was $150 threshold to flat fee shipping $6
J. Crew was $150 threshold to none
PetSmart was threshold $75 now flat fee shipping $6

Upgrade
Several sites are using expedited delivery as a shipping promotion.
Harry & David - free express delivery Thanksgiving
Godiva - 2 day upgrade if over $60

Comparison to Prior Year

Comparing free shipping promotions of the top department stores from prior year, most have less generous free shipping offers than last year. (Note: the year ago period is Thanksgiving weekend, so that could skew results.)

The table below shows that except for Macy's, the department stores have more restrictive promotions this year than last year. (The numbers are threshold spend amounts to get free shipping.)

MERCHANTS | Yr-to-Yr | 11/22/2008 | 11/1/2008 | 11/24/2007
Saksfifthavenue | Poorer 200 150 unconditional
Nordstrom | Same 100 200 100
Neiman Marcus | Poorer 200 None unconditional
Macy's | Richer 99 None Product conditional
JCPenney.com | Poorer 49 69 25


These sites and several others are visually compared year-over-year in the presentation below.