There are so many reasons to love online shopping, but paying to have something shipped probably isn’t one of them. Fortunately, there are several ways to avoid high shipping costs.
Some of the biggest online shopping sites offer free shipping. Sometimes it depends on the day or if you’re paying for a free shipping membership, but other times you can get lucky and find a coupon that offers free shipping.
Use a Free Shipping Coupon Code
A good coupon code can have your next order shipped for free. A coupon code, or promotional code, is a code that online stores make available to entice you to shop at their website. If you don’t belong to their email list or to a certain group of customers, you may never know that these codes exist.
To find a coupon code for the store you want to order from, visit coupon websites such as RetailMeNot and CouponCabin. Type in the store name in the search bar and browse the list of results to see if there’s a free shipping code.
An even easier way to find free shipping codes while you shop is with a browser add-on that can do all the searching for you. Honey is one example.
If you find a coupon code for free shipping, you can enter it during the checkout process to get the order without paying for shipping. Depending on the site where you found the free shipping code, there might be a special link you can click to automatically accept the deal without having to copy the code.
Choose a Store That Has Free Shipping
FreeShipping.org lets you browse through thousands of stores that have free shipping. By starting your shopping from this website, you guarantee that whatever you buy, you’ll get with free shipping.
Make a Minimum Order to Get Free Shipping
More websites than you might think offer free shipping as long as you spend a certain amount of money—no coupon code needed. You might find that as long as you spend $50, your order will ship for free.
These types of deals are normally promoted on the website’s home page or, like in this image, during checkout.
Some of the websites mentioned above showcase these types of free shipping deals, so if you’re not sure where to look, revisit those sites.
Ship for Free to a Local Store
Big chain stores like Best Buy and Walmart will let you place an order on their website and choose to have it shipped for free to their closest physical store. You’ll have to pick it up there yourself but the few minutes it takes to do that will save you from having to pay for shipping.
Ask for Free Shipping
Online stores want your business and many are willing to bend over backward to get it. If you want free shipping from a store, just call and ask.
If you’re a frequent customer or you’re placing a large order, use these points for leverage. You’ll be surprised how often this works!
Shop on Annual Free Shipping Day
Every year around the holidays, hundreds of stores take part in Free Shipping Day. There’s no minimum order amount when you shop at these stores, so it doesn’t matter how small your order is.
The Free Shipping Day website is where you can see which stores are going to have free shipping on this day.
This isn’t the only free shipping day you can take advantage of. If you can hold off, wait to make your purchase until a special day or some other event that the company is honoring. It might be a week before Mother’s Day, the company’s 10-year anniversary, etc. Be on the lookout for promotional emails and website banners advertising free shipping days.
Save With a Free Shipping Plan
A growing number of websites are starting to offer free shipping plans. How it works is you pay a certain amount of money to get free shipping for a set amount of time. You could save a lot of money if you’re a frequent customer of a website with one of these plans.
Similar is Target’s RedCard. There’s no annual fee but if you use it when shopping from their website, you can get free 2-day shipping on some items, plus discounts per purchase.
Make Sure You’re Really Saving With Free Shipping
Sometimes you lose money only ordering from stores that have free shipping. Be sure to price compare with a website like PriceGrabber or Google Shopping before ordering.
For example, a store with free shipping might charge $50 for a pair of jeans while another store, with $5 flat rate shipping, might only charge $40 for the same pair of jeans. You’d save $5 at the store without free shipping.
The same concept applies in other situations such as with auction sites. You could score some great deals compared to regular sites, even if shipping isn’t free.
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