With online shopping being as popular as store shopping with the holiday shoppers, today one has no dearth of alternatives to the conventional method of going to a retail outlet physically and buying the things he/she wants. Either you visit a shop, select goods and buy from there or otherwise order whatever you want to from an online store and get it delivered at your doorstep. Many big stores are offering to ship your goods free of charge. Wal-Mart, Borders, Radio Shack, and Payless Shoe Source are some of the big stores that are offering to ship your goods for free to your house after you order them online. Your online orders get delivered to the stores from where you collect them.

Naturally you may wonder why stores like Wal-Mart and Borders are being so generous? What have they got in this? The answer lays in the fact that today, the customer rules! The service providers are trying hard to please their Gods (the customers) by offering them a lot of convenience. This ship-to-store service is one such endeavor in that direction to gain an edge over the competitors. You as a customer haven’t got anything to lose by availing this service. On the contrary, when you shop online, you are saving up on time, effort and energy. Also your range of selection increases, and you get to buy at the best bargained prices. The ship-to-store service ensures that the goods ordered reach you safely and in time.

All this looks good, but don’t forget to read and understand the fine print of the ship-to-store service well before you actually go for one.

Before you finalize an online order for a ship-to-store service, find out if the retail store that you want it to be shipped to is actually willing to provide you the service .Retail stores have their own terms and conditions for transportation of goods. Gander Mountain, for example, does not ship articles that come directly from the makers. Stores like Wal-Mart limit the quantity of shipping for perishable goods etc. The best thing you could do to avoid such hassles is to fully understand the terms and conditions for shipping of the retail store before you opt to get your online purchases shipped to it.

Free site-to-store coupons are not always the best. Sometimes, discounted coupons may be a better option. The site-to-store shipping may be more time taking than the normal ground shipping. Opting for faster shipping may be more expensive than getting the goods from the site delivered directly to your home. Collecting the shipped goods from the store might be a big hassle. You might be asked to stand in long queues, asked for personal identification cards, or asked to be personally present for the pick up etc.

You are generally given a period of time during which you need to collect your shipment from the stores, otherwise you’ve got to face the penalty of the store as defined by it.