No purchase is necessary to enter or win. There is a free mail in route, and it puts you in exactly the same pool as everyone who bought something.
The Official Rules are the instructions
The Official Rules for the giveaway you are entering set out the exact method: what to write, what has to be on the card, the address to send it to, and the deadline. You can read them at shftdco.com/pages/rules. Follow that wording exactly.
We deliberately do not paraphrase it here. A free entry only counts if it matches the Rules, and a paraphrase that drifts even slightly could cost you the entry. Read it there, not here.
One entry per envelope
Each entry needs its own hand written card and its own envelope. There is no cap on how many you send over a giveaway, but they do not stack inside one envelope. One card, one envelope, one entry.
Mailed entries go into the same pool
This is the part people ask about most, so plainly: a mailed entry is not a lesser entry.
Mailed entries are added to the pool as they arrive, they are numbered the same way as every other entry, and they are drawn on exactly the same terms. The draw does not know or care how an entry got there.
They will not appear on My Entries
Mailed entries are recorded by hand rather than through checkout, so they do not show up on the My Entries page in your account. My Entries only shows entries from orders.
Do not read an empty My Entries page as a lost mail entry. There is nothing wrong. The two simply live in different places until the draw.
We cannot confirm an individual envelope
We cannot tell you that one specific envelope arrived. The Official Rules also state that the Sponsor is not responsible for late, incomplete, delayed, undelivered or misdirected entries, which is standard for a mail in route and worth knowing before you send anything.
If you want certainty about delivery, send it in good time rather than close to the deadline.
You have to enter while a giveaway is open
A mailed entry counts toward the giveaway that is open when it arrives, and the Official Rules set the deadline. Entries do not bank and they do not roll into the next giveaway, so an envelope that lands after entries close does not carry over.
Eligibility is the same either way
The free route does not change who can enter or who can win. The Official Rules set eligibility, and they apply to a mailed entry exactly as they apply to a purchased one.
Questions
Use the contact form at shftdco.com/pages/contact and we will reply within 24 hours. For anything about the method itself, the Official Rules are the authority and we will point you back to them.