Target expands free shipping
Target announced Monday that it will offer free shipping to customers who order $25 or more in merchandise online, a move that puts it in direct competition with Amazon, which has a $35 free shipping limit.
A sign for a Target store in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill. The second-largest retailer in the United States announced Monday, Feb. 23, 2015 that it is expanding its free shipping for online shoppers.
Jim Young/Reuters/File
Watch out, Amazon. Target is offering free shipping to more online shoppers.
Target, the second-largest retailer in the United States,聽聽that it is offering free shipping for customers who order $25 or more worth of merchandise from its聽website.
That鈥檚 down from $50 and comes on the heels of what the company says was a record holiday season for Internet sales.
鈥淲e saw an enthusiastic response to our free shipping offer over the holidays,鈥� Jason Goldberger, president of Target.com and mobile sales, said in a news release. 鈥淣ow, whether guests are stocking up or doing fill-in shopping, we鈥檝e enhanced our year-round shipping offer to be one of the best in all of retail.鈥�
The company says Target.com set new sales records on Thanksgiving and Black Friday last year and that mobile accounted for 60% of traffic to the site.
For years, Amazon had offered free shipping on orders of $25 and up. But, in 2013, the Web-shopping titan聽to $35 for customers who aren鈥檛 Amazon Prime members.
As digital sales, particularly via mobile, continue to supplant brick-and-mortar browsing, Target has made Web sales a bigger priority. Late last year, the company began shipping online orders from select retail stores instead of a centralized warehouse 鈥� a move it says speeded up delivery times.
This year, it plans to open two new online-fulfillment stores 鈥� in Memphis, Tennessee, and York, Pennsylvania.
The Target release said the $25 free-shipping threshold is available with 鈥渧irtually no exclusions,鈥� but did not specify what those exclusions might be. Target鈥檚聽there is a fee for shipping some oversize items.
Discount-store rival Walmart聽聽free shipping on orders of $50 or more.