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6 Dec, 2011

“Free Shipping” Promotions Soar Week of Black Friday

New York, New York (PRWEB) December 01, 2011 — eDataSource, a proven provider of strategic intelligence for businesses looking to advance their digital marketing and e-commerce strategies, today released figures (http://bit.ly/vQamkT) showing a significant jump in “Free Shipping” offers across email, Twitter and Facebook messages during the week of Black Friday.

Moreover, Twitter promotions were the most prevalent of all digital marketing free shipping messages over the past six weeks, outnumbering email messages using the term in the subject line by almost eight to one (77%) and outpacing similar Facebook promotions by 279 percent this past week.

By analyzing digital marketing messages from more than 2,000 retail entities since October 17, eDataSource found that brands used “Free Shipping” fairly consistently week-over-week across email and social media. The data showed no clear increase in those messages until the week of November 21 when the promotions went up 107 percent for Twitter, 63 percent for Facebook and 81 percent for email over the prior week.

“With more than one-third of consumers saying they’ll try to save money this holiday season by shopping online, retailers have now answered their call with ‘Free Shipping’ offers galore,” said G.B. Heidarsson, SVP of Marketing for eDataSource. “The jump in the past week signals a shift in focus from in-store promotions to accelerating online sales with free shipping as the trigger. I’m surprised to see it didn’t happen even sooner since value is still of such importance to consumers this year.”

As evidence of the fact that free shipping is one of consumers’ most anticipated and favorite holiday promotions, eDataSource found Twitter activity, including Tweets and Retweets, unexpectedly high around the offer. Tweets containing “free shipping” not only consistently and thoroughly outnumbered similar e-mail messages and Facebook posts throughout the past several weeks, they went up 154 percent from the week of October 17th.

“The fact that Twitter messaging around free shipping was so high shows how viral of a medium it can be,” continued Heidarsson. “While Facebook seems to have been underutilized in this regard, these social media channels should not be overlooked for promoting such a highly sought-after deal.”

Further info:  http://www.edatasource.com