January 17th, 2008 
Alissa I frequently get emails from visitors asking why companies would give us such great quality product samples for free. Surely these free samples cost a fortune for companies to give away to us right?
First let’s talk numbers
I have found that most top free sample providers give away anywhere between 5,000 and 20,000 samples of a product being promoted.
Let’s say that product is a 2ml perfume sample of Burberry Brit for women. Froogle.com tells me the best price to purchase this sample is $1.99 US on eBay, so for simplicity sake let’s say it only costs 5% of that to be manufactured (wild guess), giving us a cost of approximately 10 cents per sample.
Say the promotional provider gives away 20,000 and it might cost them $2000 plus let’s say $500 in shipping costs giving $2500 total.
Now let’s get to the real power.
The Power of Viral Marketing
Whilst directly it may cost $2500 to send 20,000 perfume samples to consumers like us and no profit is made directly from providing these free samples to us, what it does is create huge amounts of free advertising and sales from viral marketing.
Of the 20,000 people receiving the sample
- If most took the time to order then some would probably like the product so they’ll end up buying it. Say the full product in this case costs $50 they may make $30 profit margin on that and say only 50 buy the product that is $1,500 profit.
- They’ll recommend it to a few friends, so that might increase the sales to bring in another $3,000 profit
- Sites like mine would have promoted the product to our visitors which create more exposure to the product to visitors and traffic to the manufacturer sites even after the free sample offers expire
So they make an easy $4,500, gain large amounts of free advertising and promotion (that would have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars if they paid) and gain more exposure and goodwill towards their brand.
Now compound that in relation to the thousands of free samples available 
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[...] asiaw7 wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhilst directly it may cost $2500 to send 20000 perfume samples to consumers like us and no profit is made directly from providing these free samples to us, what it does is create huge amounts of free advertising and sales from viral … [...]
great roundup i didn’t know how profitable it was for them even though you are making assumptions
I was searching for Blogs about create your invitations free and found this site. I am interested in your content and appreciate sites like this.
Hello Alissa!! I have a blog of free samples and offers from Brasil, and i´m Tyson interested to put our blogs together in fact, what do you think about it? Please conatc me in tysontayon@gmail.com
Forum: brindeseamostras.forumbrasil.net
Blog: pedirecebi.blogspot.com
MSN: ltayson@msn.com
Sincerely, Tyson S.
With products like perfumes and colognes the mark up is insane. It only costs the company like $5 to make a large bottle of fragrences which sell in the stores for up to $70. What you are paying for is all the marketing behind promoting the product.
Good insight Samantha though marketing still gets allocated back to the cost to provide a product so the marketing is factored in. This is the same with any industry
hello,
I am getting ready to for the next schppl year for the kids, and i will throwing afree pinic for the kids in August. And i want to give away free school supplies. If you can help in anyway please email me.
Thanks, Sheree
I am getting ready for the next school year, if their anything you can sent me as free sample for our students. We have one thousand students in our building. Thank you, Loretta A Burnette
Loretta – I removed your personal details please make sure not to post your personal details in a post. Also read the FAQ regarding freebies as they shouldn’t be for giving to the masses.