As Hardeep Bindra (GM of AOL Shopping/inStore) said in my interview with him, “we provide a much better experience than [working through] a data feed, which can be more mechanical. We bring the human element in and adjust to maximize benefit for our partner.”
Well, one example of this is AOL Shopping’s Free Shipping weekend .
AOL lists the following stores offering free shipping:
Sephora, Ice.com, Barnes & Noble, Red Envelope, Horchow, Drugstore.com, GiftBaskets.com, Hickory Farms, Avon, Blue Nile, Fossil, 1-800-Flowers, Plow & Hearth, Cheryl & Co, HearthSong, Omaha Steaks, JC Whitney, Sharper Image, JC Penney, LL Bean, Macys, Pottery Barn, Gymboree, Williams Sonoma, New Balance, Pottery Barn Kids, Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus, Target, Gap, and more. [You'll only see 18 stores listed at a time. Click on the Free Shipping link to see additional merchants. Yes, the functionality is a little clunky.]
So while these free shipping deals can be hard to find on Shopping.com, NexTag, and Shopzilla, AOL Shopping has done a nice job of aggregating these deals to make it easier for its users…sounds like a very AOL think to do. However, MSN Shopping one-ups AOL through its Free Shipping Center as its 60+ deals don’t just apply to this weekend. Yahoo! Shopping has a much smaller (compared to MSN Shopping) Free Shipping Center, but the deals seem to be checked frequently (to make sure they are still valid). Also, Smarter.com and Yahoo! Shopping have smartly listed coupons and deals in product search results.
