In an effort to consolidate the experiences and information that we share with consumers about the world of online shopping, we will be moving our blog location from STELLAShopper.com over to blog.STELLAService.com.  We have greatly appreciated your readership and feedback over the last year and we’d hate to lose you as part of our growing community of online shoppers just because we’re switching the address of our blog.  With that in mind, we’re asking that you please navigate over to blog.STELLAService.com and click the ‘Sign me up!’ button under the Email Subscription header.  Or, if you’d rather subscribe via RSS feed, you can click the RSS button at the very top of the right-hand column.

Click on the picture to visit the new STELLA blog!

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out. To explain the title of this post, this is by no means a “farewell,” but rather a “see you over there!”

Thank you!
Nicole

Yummm all beef hot dog

Closer up…

Not actual size-thank goodness!

Customers appreciate transparency, whether they’re inspecting a return policy or about to buy a really cheap hot dog.

Free Shipping Day was last Friday (12/17), and more online spending records were broken.

1,500+ Retailers offering free shipping

+ Promoting Free Shipping Day________________

$942,000,000 spent online (61% increase from 2009)

With record breaking online spending and being 4 days from Christmas, you might think shoppers are close to being done shopping. However, 65% of shoppers are still not finished with holiday shopping!

The reasons?

Lack of time and money account for nearly two-thirds of the reasons why shoppers will be scrambling to get their gifts together before Christmas.

11% of survey respondents from a comScore survey are waiting for better deals-these are the people that risk purchasing back-ordered products and pay for next-day air shipping to receive their purchases in time, likely negating any benefit of a good sale (and if they do save a couple dollars, it will ultimately go toward blood pressure meds for waiting so long!)

6% “Enjoy the thrill of last-minute shopping.” This is the same category of people who used to run after the school bus to catch it, only to arrive with sweat stains and disheveled clothing.

Luckily he's wearing his "running work shoes."

Luckily, dozens of retailers offer free shipping by Christmas Eve, as listed by FreeShippingDay.com:

STELLA Elite-rated companies with Free Shipping by Christmas Eve:

(STELLA Rating in parentheses)
Zappos.com: (96.5) Free Shipping on All Orders

STELLA Excellent-rated companies with Free Shipping by Christmas Eve:

Target.com: (84.4) $5 Off Orders Over $50

CrateAndBarrel.com: (84.9) Free Shipping on Orders Over $100

ToysRUs.com: (89.0) Free Shipping on Orders Over $49 and on select toys

EddieBauer.com: (83.6) Free Shipping on Orders Over $00

JCPenney.com: (86.4) 50% Off Express Shipping

GanderMountain.com: (83.1) Free Shipping on All Orders

Endless.com: (87.8) Free Overnight Shipping on Most Items

Lowes.com: (81.0) Free Shipping on Orders Over $49

EasternMountainSports.com: (88.5) Free Shipping on Orders Over $125

Don’t delay too long, some of these expire tonight!

On Monday (12/13) I wrote about the importance of free shipping and that a heavier percentage of transactions include free shipping. E-Retailers need to offer free shipping to stay in the game.

FreeShippingDay.com promises that on Friday, December 17, more than 1,500 participating merchants will offer free shipping with delivery by Christmas Eve in the continental United States. The site instructs that “All Free Shipping Day offers will be revealed on this website at 12:00am EST on Friday, December 17, 2010.”

Just a few of the e-retailers offering free shipping on Friday, 12/17

Free shipping AND delivery by Christmas Eve?

That’s another day I can procrastinate my shopping!

This is a good read from Time Magazine. It’s shocking how emotionally attached consumers are to brands, but it is also a testament to the power of consumer loyalty.

Can you spot the arrow?

FedEx expects TODAY (December 13, 2010 to keep your reading enjoyment scroll-free) to be the busiest day of the year, projecting 16.0 million shipments delivered! That’s about a 1 in 7 chance your household will get a visit from FedEx today. (Appropriate door-answering attire appreciated).

Number of Shipments (in millions) since 2005.

It’s interesting to note that since 2006, the date of the largest volume has been getting earlier every year.

Have we stopped procrastinating as shoppers?

Did we shop sooner when Cyber Monday arrived early this year?

Maybe we’re enticed by free shipping deals offered the past few weeks.

Andrew Lipsman on comScore looked into the role of free shipping plays with online transactions.

The results were very compelling:

The percentage of U.S. E-Commerce Transactions Including Free Shipping in 2010 and 2009

In the first three weeks of November, the percentage of purchases including free shipping in 2010 mirrored 2009′s, but once Cyber Monday (November 29th this year) hit and recorded the heaviest U.S. shopping day ever, the percentage of transactions including free shipping were ten percentage points higher in 2010 than they were in 2009. Translation: Free shipping mattered more this year.

E-Retailers are following suit of the success of AmazonPrime and realize they need it to stay in the game. When’s the last time you gleefully paid for shipping?

Maybe you burnt a bridge with someone who you purchased a gift for, maybe whatever you ordered no longer fits because in addition to layering your clothes for cold weather, you’ve also been layering your meals with a block of cheddar cheese…or maybe you just flat out purchased in haste and made a mistake.  Whatever the reason, ‘Boomerang Thursday’ is in recognition of your mistakes.

Yesterday Bizreport.com announced that one in 20 people who purchased gifts on or around Cyber Monday expect to return at least one of their purchases prior to the Christmas holiday.  This coming Thursday, December 9th, is typically the kickoff day for those returns.  Hence the apropos ‘Boomerang Thursday.’

The high number of returns is no cause for alarm though, it actually demonstrates increased consumer confidence in online retailers’ ability to have consumers’ replacement items in stock and ready to be delivered prior to Christmas.  But just like Ebenezer Scrooge, your holiday mistakes could come back to bite you.  With wintry weather and the holiday season comes increased delivery time expectations as well as a high volume of consumers who may have made the same kinds of ordering mistakes you did (minus the gluttonous layering of cheese).

That being said, if you think that you may end up having to return a product that you ordered recently, it’s best to look for a retailer that has an easy to understand and clearly outlined returns policy.  It may also be best to look for one with free return shipping and affordable, speedy delivery rates.  If you’re on the lookout for retailers with excellent shipping and delivery policies and practices just in time for the holidays, look no further than our Holiday Guide.  These retailer’s policies will leave you so pleased that you’ll be returning from whence you came, just like…a planet in orbit?  a dog playing fetch?  a sailor returning to port?  Either way, you get the idea.

You can't catch me I'm the Michel...oh wait, wrong man.

The temperature has dropped significantly in NYC, and my multiple layers have me resembling the Michelin Man.

Speaking of Michelin, the 2011 Michelin Guide was released a little over a month ago. The “famously anonymous” company publishes annually guides to the best restaurants in New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago.

The biggest advantage to Michelin, however, is that its ratings are based on expert-driven opinion. The “Inspectors” rating restaurants for Michelin are trained to “notice every detail and go unnoticed doing it.” While I am a HUGE fan of Yelp, I realize anyone can write reviews on the site, and I’ve often found completely irrelevant (albeit entertaining) posts:

A review by my friend Farzan. Helpful for someone visiting Dulles? Not really. Entertaining? Absolutely.

It’s unfortunate that Michelin only rates restaurants in the three aforementioned cities, while Yelp has reviews of businesses across the nation. Yelp’s reviews are free to peruse, while viewing Michelin’s ratings require the purchase of a Michelin Guide for $13.28 through the site or $12.91 on Amazon. It’s the price consumers will pay for expert advice. While there are advantages to having the Yelp platform where anyone can post, resulting in hundreds of reviews per locale, the professional Michelin ratings are achieved from specific standards. The “secret sauce” used to rate restaurants and the expertise is what consumers pay for when they consult the authority of restaurant guides.

For more funny Yelp reviews from my friend Farzan, visit here. For assuredly useful, expert reviews from Michelin, here’s information about where to purchase the Michelin Guide.

We like expert-driven ratings for merchants too, except we don’t charge for them. See them here.

I wrote a similar post (“Dirty Hotel Reviews“) about the wisdom of a crowd (Yelp) vs. independent, professional review (Michelin) if you’d like to read more on this subject!

Movie flops aside, there are a few items I found online that I can’t understand. In fact, it’s possible a negative number of people purchased the following specimens:

Oh, poppycock, it's the floppy clock!

I like to imagine chili pouring out of this crock-cooler. Great for the next tailgating party.

I bet she wore this to see Harry Potter 7.1.

YES I LOVE COFFEE SO MUCH I WANT COFFEE ON MY TREE!!

Brush the dirt of your shoul-NO DON'T IT'S REAL GOLD!

Speaks for itself.

Need something to go with your hip-hugger, rhinestone fanny pack?

For REAL gift ideas, check out the STELLAShopper Holiday Guide and only shop from the best in customer service!

You know what else you can blame? The presence of online deals equally as impressive as those of brick and mortar stores, or the free shipping offers (Think STELLAService Excellent-rated “The Big Big O” Overstock.com) that led to a 12.1% increase in average order value, to $190.80 from a 2009 average of $170.19.

Another perk to shopping online: you can do it in your skivvies.

You can also blame the free returns policies of certain sites, especially ones that include a pre-paid return shipping label that make post-office trips obsolete. (To view a list of these sites, click here!)

Or, you can attribute it to gift-wrapping that e-retailers will do for you, saving you a trip to the loved ones in Hartland, CA.

Perhaps you were banned from a store or can’t control your kleptomania, but e-retailers do not judge.

The best of online holiday shopping is yet to come with Cyber Monday a few days away-to view where to get the best Cyber Monday deals, visit here.