With little more than a week left until Christmas, shoppers who
order gifts online are cutting it close if they want their items
shipped in time to appear under the tree on December 25. You get
guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve by purchasing items on
December 17 from any of the nearly 1,700 retailers participating in
Free Shipping Day (see
How to Get Free Shipping on Holiday Orders
). But if you miss that opportunity, you might have to pay a lot to
get expedited shipping.
SEE ALSO:
10 Ways to Find the Best Holiday Days Online
You do have another option, though. You can buy from merchants
that have a good track record of shipping quickly. We asked
STELLAService, an independent company that evaluates retailers, to
tell us which companies ship the fastest -- and slowest. It looked
at retailers' shipping times from the past six months beginning May
1.
Of the top 25 online retailers, these
shipped the fastest
. The shipping times reflect the average amount of time it took the
retailer to deliver orders.
1. Staples.com, 1 day and 16 hours
2. Zappos.com, 2 days
3. OfficeMax.com, 2 days and 1 hour
4. Amazon.com, 2 days and 20 hours
5. OfficeDepot.com, 2 days and 22 hours
6. Newegg.com, 3 days and 5 hours
7. Walmart.com, 3 days and 17 hours
8. Store.Sony.com, 3 days and 18 hours
9. Store.Apple.com, 3 days and 22 hours
10. Gap.com, 4 days
Zappos.com also is just one of two top 25 online retailers to
offer free shipping on every purchase. LLBean.com is the other, but
it's one of the ten slowest shippers on STELLAService's list.
Of the top 25 online retailers, these
shipped the slowest
:
1. Dell.com, 7 days and 4 hours
2. HSN.com, 7 days and 4 hours
3. Overstock.com, 6 days and 1 hour
4. Target.com, 6 days
5. QVC.com, 5 days and 22 hours
6. Williams-Sonoma.com, 5 days and 17 hours
7. JCPenney.com, 5 days and 2 hours
8. Macys.com, 5 days and 2 hours
9. BestBuy.com, 5 days
10. LLBean.com, 4 days and 19 hours
Dell's slow shipping time might be a result of customers taking
advantage of its free-shipping option. It offers free five-to-seven
day ground shipping on all customized consumer and home office
products, with no minimum purchase required, says Dell spokeswoman
Christina-Marie Furtado. During November, Dell was actually one of
the fastest shippers, with an average delivery time of one day and
16 hours, according to STELLAService.
Overstock.com President Jonathan Johnson says that his company's
six-day average for shipping, as reported by STELLAService, is
likely skewed because much of what the retailer sells are larger
products, such as furniture and televisions, that can only be
delivered when the customer is at home to receive them. It takes
time to coordinate such deliveries, he says. Most of the smaller
products that Overstock.com sells get to customers in fewer than
three and a half days, he says.Overstock.com's average delivery
time for the month of November was five days and seven hours,
acccording to STELLAService.
A statement from Target claims that Target.com meets its
estimated delivery dates 99% of the time, on average, and that its
delivery timelines have improved throughout the year.
HSN.com did not respond to a request for an explanation of it
its slow shipping time.
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