Best Buy is getting into the holiday spirit early and pushing back against major competitors, offering free next-day delivery on thousands of items from Thanksgiving through Christmas, and free standard shipping in the few areas where next day isn’t available.
The company says next-day delivery is available in 42 U.S. markets, covering 99% of its domestic customers. Orders have to be placed before 3 p.m., or 2 p.m. on Sundays, in order to qualify. Best Buy also offers curbside pickup within an hour.
“Overall, we are constantly working to increase our percentage of packages that are delivered the next day,” Best Buy spokesman Jeff Shelman told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. “That won’t change after holiday.”
While eligible items include products like headphones and espresso machines, the free next-day offering “excludes some bigger and heavier things like big-screen TVs and refrigerators (basically if it’s too big to fit down the chimney),” Big Buy said in its release.
The electronics and entertainment big-box retailer is in the “faster is better” hunt at the top of the pack along with Walmart, Amazon and Target as peak season rapidly approaches. All have stepped up their same- and next-day offerings in 2019. For instance, Amazon laid out $800 million in Q2 to enable its new one-day delivery standard for Prime members. Then Walmart said in May it was offering free next-day delivery for 200,00 items, with a minimum order threshold of $35.
Target for its part expanded same-day delivery to 65,000 items on Target.com in June, but requires a flat fee of $9.99 per order.