Offering free shipping is one of the largest promotional techniques available to businesses. Think of Amazon.com ~ they often entice customers by offering free shipping on all orders over $100. Not only are they offering people free shipping, people also want to spend more money so they do get the free shipping. If they have only $70 in their cart, and shipping is $10, they are much more likely to spend the extra $30 to get the free shipping.

When you use free shipping as a promotional tool, you should provide restrictions to the offer, and you should clearly mark restrictions as such. For instance, if you will offer free shipping on a certain item, or on all orders over a certain dollar value.

But while you are doing in as a restriction, play it up as a great promotion. Create a little logo with "Free Shipping on all Orders Over $100" or "Free shipping on all New Mom Gift Baskets". It is also a great promotion you can use in your advertising on websites and ezines to get even more sales.