Free Shipping Day is a commercial holiday that’s celebrated in the middle of December. This holiday has been celebrated since 2008 and is observed by thousands of online retailers of all sizes. On this day, these online retailers offer free shipping to their customers. Initially, it was a holiday that was only popular in the U.S., but it has since become popular in Canada and the Netherlands as well.

Every year, it seems to get bigger, and now it’s estimated that more sales are generated on this day than during Black Friday. Anyone who wants to observe this day can do so by visiting the holiday’s website and checking out the companies that are participating.

History of Free Shipping Day

This holiday was created by Luke and Maisie Knowles, founders of a website they created as a way to try to extend the online shopping season, which begins on Black Friday and peaks on Cyber Monday. By 2009, over 700 retailers had participated in the event through their site. Every year since then, merchant participation has continued to rise. Today, not only do the merchants who participate in this day offer free shipping, but many of them also offer guarantees that people will receive their merchandise by Christmas.

Amazing Facts About Online Sales

Since the entire purpose of this holiday is for people to get free shipping from one of their favorite online retailers during the holiday season, we thought it would be fun to spend at least a little bit of time listing some online sales statistics and facts. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about online sales, you might still want to check out the following factoids because they might surprise you. Let’s take a quick look at the following points before we move on to the customs and traditions of this holiday.

• In 2018, over 1.8 billion people worldwide purchased goods off the Internet, resulting in $2.8 trillion in e-commerce sales.
• In 2019, e-commerce sales rose to over $3 trillion.
• Almost 50% more people shop on their phones than they do in stores.
• Due to COVID-19, 42% of the U.S. population purchased their groceries online at least once a week in 2019. This was a 20% increase from just two years prior.
• According to a recent survey, if a shopping site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, the consumer will visit a competing retailer to make an online purchase.

Free Shipping Day Customs & Traditions

Once you find out when Free Shipping Day is, you can then fire up your computer or mobile device and start looking for bargains. Many different retailers participate in this holiday, and the list changes every year, so be sure to keep up with what’s going on. You can also celebrate this day by using the hashtag #freeshippingday on all of your social media posts.