Strategic Insights – We’ve Got Ideas

December 18 is Free Shipping Day

Thursday, December 18 has officially been deemed Free Shipping Day. Retailers from Apple to Toys R Us are offering online shoppers free shipping by Christmas Eve on all purchases. What’s the catch? You have to order today.

From what I can tell, there are no restrictions as to what types of businesses can join in on this Holiday camaraderie. Small retailers could really benefit from this type of promotion and get an otherwise unattainable national reach. Better yet, retailers with a regional focus could band together and create like-minded promotions for their geographic areas.

For example, restaraunt owners around the Raleigh-Durham area could band together and create an offer for local customers to purchase a frequent buyer’s card good for any of the participating vendors. This is better than having individual cards for restaraunts because there is a larger pool of marketing funds to pull from, reducing the cost of getting the promotion in front of potential customers. Participating restaraunts also benefit from sharing customers instead of competing.

Promotions like this are becoming particularly prevelant as our economy takes a turn for the worse. Businesses are focusing less on how to combat the competition and more on shuffling to keep sales up. It’s times like these that people band together, but now even businesses are helping each other just to stay afloat. I expect that in the coming months we will be seeing a lot more co-branded promotions from large companies. The question is, will smaller businesses jump on the bandwagon?

by Josh Gibbs, New Media Development