Best Buy Waives Shipping Fees for Holiday Season

By Melissa Campanelli

Best Buy said in blog post on Monday that it's offering free shipping on all online orders during the holiday season. For the third straight year, the electronics retailer said it would waive the $35 minimum order for free shipping it maintains the rest of the year from Oct. 30 to Dec. 25. Best Buy also announced that it's expanding its same-day delivery in time for the holidays. After expanding its same-day delivery program to more than 25 metro areas earlier this fall, Best Buy is now introducing the service to more than 40 U.S. metro areas. In areas where the service is available, consumers will be able to place an order by 3 p.m. local time and receive the package by 9 p.m. that night for $5.99.

“We always want to help make shopping with Best Buy as easy as possible for our customers,” said Allison Peterson, president of BestBuy.com, in the blog post. “But we especially want this to be the case during the holiday season. Whether a customer wants to shop in-store, online with free shipping or if they need a product the same day, we want to help people easily get and give great tech.”

Total Retail's Take: Best Buy continues its tradition of offering free shipping to consumers during the holiday season, which will be a key selling point for the retailer as it faces intense competition. Even though Best Buy is coming off a slew of strong quarters, bolstered in part by strong e-commerce growth, it will be battling with the likes of Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and Target for consumers’ holiday purchases, and offering free shipping is an aggressive move. Best Buy isn't the only retailer jumping on the free-shipping-for-holidays bandwagon. Last week, for example, Target said it would provide free shipping during the holiday season. And Wal-Mart is expected to announce its holiday plans soon, as it has spent much of the last year beefing up its speedy delivery capabilities as well as providing discounts to shoppers who pick up an online order in a store.

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Melissa Campanelli Author's page Melissa Campanelli is Editor-in-Chief of Total Retail. She is an industry veteran, having covered all aspects of retail, tech, digital, e-commerce, and marketing over the past 20 years. Melissa is also the co-founder of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle.