Don’t pay for shipping this season

One of my favorite shopping sites doesn’t sell any merchandise, yet I’d never consider an online purchase without first visiting it. The site is called Freeshipping.org and it links consumers to free shipping deals offered by more than 850 major online merchants including JCPenney, Target, Bloomingdale's, Kohlʼs, Sears, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Amazon, and Macyʼs.

When you click on an online store at FreeShipping.org, which launched last December, you’ll find detailed information on each promotion, purchase requirements, expiration dates, and gain access to those mysterious coupon codes you need to enter during the checkout process. I found the Web site to be well organized and easy to navigate.

According to Luke Knowles, founder and CEO of the site, there are usually at least 1,300 free shipping deals at any given time, and 75 new ones are added daily.

As a rough rule of thumb, consumers who want to take advantage of no-charge shipping should plan to order by Dec. 18, to avoid paying for expedited shipping charges.

“We are expecting to see a lot of free expedited shipping offers once we get closer to Christmas,” Knowles told me.

Related: - Overnight shipping: FedEx vs. UPS vs. USPS - Ways to cut the cost of shipping - Should you pay for priority shipping?

Free shipping is often the pivotal factor that convinces consumers to buy online instead of in stores. According to various surveys cited by Freeshipping.org, here’s how critical it is:

• 60 percent of survey respondents indicated that free shipping was a reason they were more likely to shop online. (Source: Harris Interactive Survey, 2008)
• 78 percent of online customers said prohibitive costs of shipping discouraged them from online purchases. (Source: E-tailing Group, 2008)
• 43 percent of shoppers abandon their shopping carts because of unexpectedly high shipping charges. (Source: Paypal, comScore, 2008)
• 61 of the largest 100 online retailers offered free shipping as of the week of Nov. 10. (Source: Internet Retailer)
• 90 percent of respondents said free-shipping offers would entice them to spend more online (Source: The Conference Board Survey, 2008)
• 72 percent of consumers said that if an e-commerce site eliminated free shipping, they would use another e-commerce site that did offer free shipping. (Source: comScore Survey, 2008)