free shipping

This holiday shopping season could finally make free shipping the norm among multichannel retailers — and free returns could be next.

LL Bean introduced free standard shipping without a minimum purchase amount to all US and Canadian addresses on March 25. The multichannel retailer will also increase Visa cardmember benefits by doubling rewards on purchases made with LL Bean Visa cards.

Online consumer holiday spending increased 12% compared with last year to $28.4 billion, according to digital business analytics firm comScore which measured spending up to December 22. It will hit $35 billion at its current pace, easily topping last year's total of $29.1 billion.