Richard Periut wrote:

> Why on God's earth would a business not want to promote itself by not
> sending samples of their product???
>
> If you want customers for life, give them a piece of your fine products.
> Unless you just want to cater to first buyers for certain reasons...

Do you really think that you gain life long customers by giving them free
stuff? Brand loyalty can make a big difference in a large market where a
significant market share can reap big profits. The big companies give out
some samples to get their name out, not necessarily the product. A sad fact
of life is that customers who are easily bought with freebies will switch to
anyone else who offers freebies. Lots of companies have coupons to get
people to try their product, but a lot of the people who use those coupons
are the coupons shoppers who only buy what they have coupons for.

> Specialteas.com sends samples with every order. I'm a loyal customer and
> have not wanted to delve into any other seller.

Would you still buy their other products to get the freebies if the product
was crap? I once got a load of freebies after a letter of complaint to a
company about one of their products that I had bought. The free stuff was as
bad as the thing I complained about. Another complaint letter earned me
some coupons for free products which I tried. I did buy some more of their
products, but to tell you the truth, I haven't bought any of their stuff in
years.

When the wine industry took off here a few decades ago they all had sample
rooms where you could try their wines. It was a great way to buy wines
because it took a lot of the guess work out of wine shopping. It worked for
them for a while. They demonstrated that they had good products. The problem
was that wine sampling became too popular and it was common for people to
come this way and go from winery to winery for free samples. It was a great
way to spend the day and became so popular that bus companies started wine
tours. There are no free wine samples any more. Not only do they charge
for the samples, but some of the wineries have made a pretty lucrative
business of selling samples. With the prices they charge for a small sample,
it is cheaper to go to a bar and order a glass of the same thing.