The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

Now that it’s November, most retailers have only one thing on their minds—the holiday shopping season. While it doesn’t officially kick off for consumers until the day after Thanksgiving (or if you’re my mom about two months ago), the implementation of holiday sales strategies for many retailers are already underway.

One thing that online retailers should look in to this year is the second annual Free Shipping Day, which will take place on Dec. 17. Online shopping typically declines around Dec. 12 because consumers fear that their packages may not arrive before Christmas Eve. This causes a problem for online retailers in the way of declining sales in the holiday home stretch. To combat the problem, Luke Knowles of FreeShipping.org created Free Shipping Day, which was designed to help these online retailers on the last day they can guarantee delivery before Christmas Eve.

Basically all that an online retailer needs to do is go to freeshippingday.com and fill out a short form with contact info and their Free Shipping Day offer. They also, of course, need to be willing to eat the shipping costs for that day as well as guarantee delivery of packages before Christmas. What happens when you fill out the form is that your logo will appear on the Free Shipping Day homepage on Dec. 1. Consumers that prefer to shop retailers with free shipping (which is 75% of consumers according to Forrester Research) can then click on your logo and immediately be directed to a page displaying your offer.

Last year more than 250 merchants participated in Free Shipping Day, including big names like Macy’s, Kohl’s and Bloomingdale’s. Between December 8 (when the site launched) and Dec. 18 (Free Shipping Day 2008) the site received 250,000 visitors—105,000 of which occurred just on Free Shipping Day itself.

While this is only the second year for Free Shipping Day, the site seems to have gained a ton of traction. For online retailers who have personally experienced a decline in holiday sales right before Christmas, I encourage you to check this out.