5 Online Tools for Free Shipping and Discount Delivery

Find Free Shipping Deals and Low-Cost Delivery Services

Ebates returns a portion of the cost of your purchase to you and this site has many free shipping deals. When I searched for free shipping deals on Ebates, the results were a long list of online retailers with free shipping plus rebates for 1% - 9% of my purchase. Ebates is very well organized and easy to navigate.

• Enter "free shipping" in the search box at the top of the page at Ebates.com to find free shipping deals.
• You will need to sign up for a free account to use Ebates. To avoid getting unwanted email, uncheck the box next to "send me offers via email" when you enter your email address and password.

FreeShipping.org has received a lot of attention from the media lately, and for good reason: FreeShipping.org is very easy to use. At FreeShipping.org, you can search for free shipping deals by store or by a category like electronics or home and garden, and you can sign up to get free shipping alerts via email.

• Get free shipping with coupon codes from FreeShipping.org or buy clicking through links on the site to the retailer.
• This information pertains to FreeShipping.org, not FreeShipping.com .

Quicken Picks offers rebates on purchases and is used either within the latest Quicken personal finance software, or by going directly to QuickenPicks.com. A search for free shipping deals on Quicken Picks yielded fewer free shipping deals than found on Ebates.com, but also revealed a large number of low-cost shipping deals at a variety of online retailers. QuickenPicks rebates ranged from 1% to 12% of purchase.

• Enter "free shipping" in the search box at the top of QuickenPicks.com to find free shipping and low cost shipping deals.
• You can click through to deals on QuickenPicks without setting up an account, but you will not get rebates without an account.

When you need to send out packages yourself, you can compare shipping rates for ground and overnight shipping services between UPS, DHL, Fed and USPS on screen at Shipping Sidekick. Shipping Sidekick claims that saving 30% of shipping costs is common. I found a deal to ship a five pound package overnight on Shipping Sidekick for just over $10 with FedEx, which was a huge savings over other overnight shipping options.

• Check rates without registering at Shipping Sidekick, but free registration is required to ship through the site (which passes you through to eShipper).
• You will need to tolerate viewing some advertising, but the shipping deals are worth it.

uShip is another option to try when you need to send packages. uShip provides an online auction network that matches your shipping needs with delivery services that have some space to fill in trucks that are going where you need your package delivered. List what you are shipping, with dimensions and other details, freight carriers can bid on transporting your shipment, you choose the best shipping deal.

• Feedback ratings are available on uShip so you can see what kind of track record a shipper has before you sign up to ship with them.
• uShip has tools for eBay shipping and large shipments, like boats and vehicles.