This Friday, December 17th is ‘Free Shipping Day’ (shoppers’ favorite holiday promotion) an event started in 2008, which now offers free shipping promotions from over 1000 merchants. Last year searches for ‘free shipping’ peaked during the week ending December 19th – the week which included ‘Free Shipping Day’, along with the majority of shipping deadlines for online retailers. Last week, the share of searches for ‘free shipping’ were down 22% as compared to the same week last year, which may indicate that consumers are finding this information directly from the retailers via their websites or email campaigns and may not need to actively seek out the promotions as often.

Last week, the majority of clicks for search queries on ‘free shipping’ resulted in visits to FreeShipping.org and the Free Shipping Day companion website. Amazon, who typically offers free shipping year-round, ranked 3rd behind the shipping websites as a destination for ‘free shipping’ searches.