Free shipping has long been a key offer from online retailers, to the extent that online shoppers have come to expect it. They also search for it, as the chart below shows, particularly during the holidays. We’ve been finding the new keyword breadth charting function (explained here) very useful in finding trends in searches for keywords that might not be searched for alone. Here I charted keyword breadth for “free shipping” and “on sale.”

Searches containing the terms “free shipping” were up 62% for the week ending 12/10/05 compared to the week before Thanksgiving (week ending 11/19/05), and the leading search term suggestions were “toys free shipping” and “jcpenney free shipping” for the 4 weeks ending 12/10/05.
Unlike “free shipping,” searchers are unlikely to enter just the words “on sale” into a search engine, but by examining the search term suggestions, we can see what products consumers want deals on the most. For the 4 weeks ending 12/10/05, the leading terms were: “psp on sale,” “laptops on sale,” “notebooks on sale,” “xbox 360 on sale” and “ipod on sale.” This list looked very different in July, with terms like “houses on sale” and “cars on sale” leading the group for the 4 weeks ending 7/23/05. While keyword breadth for “on sale” has less of a seasonal trend than “free shipping,” it did experience an increase of 38% during the week of Thanksgiving compared to the prior week.