Free samples tend to be perceived differently by the different parties in an exchange. The one receiving them might marvel at the generosity of the “benefactor”, while the one doing the giving might see them as a necessary business expense. In some cases, it is not even a business expense because the giver has worked out a way to recoup all expenses or losses. This is the case when a potential customer has to jump through certain hoops in order to get the free sample.
Examples of these hoops include being asked to provide information for a poll about the company or its products. They may also include visiting the sites of affiliates and giving them personal identifying information or contact information. Sometimes, the person receiving the free product sample finds that he has been subscribed to receive regular issues of a periodical and that the charges for the subscription have been applied to his credit card. In all of these cases, the recipient will surely find himself reexamining his initial notion that the giver is a generous benefactor.
The moral of the story here is that one should not be naïve in his or her role as a consumer. For a company, giving free samples is a decision made in the interests of improving the bottom line. It is not about making friends with potential customers. It is a business relationship and business relationships are ultimately about the exchange of money and goods or services. Free samples facilitate that exchange in one way or another.
Being an informed consumer would allow one to gauge wisely whether accepting the terms of a free sample would be worth his or her while. An informed consumer would be in a good position to tell whether a free sample was genuinely free or was something designed to get her to spend money without realizing it. She would also be able to tell just how much of her personal and contact information it was safe to share with a given company. If she had a post office box at which she could receive mail, she might not mind giving this information to a company that wanted to ship a free sample to her. She might, however, feel differently about giving the company her residential address. Under another set of circumstances, she might have no problem giving her residential address to an ethical company that was offering free samples.