Reciprocity
People feel obliged to return a favour.
Four of the eight page areas.
Five ways to use it, and one to avoid.
- Give a free sample or small gift with no minimum spend.
- Offer genuinely useful free guides or tools.
- Add an unexpected extra to the parcel.
- Give before asking, as unconditional gifts outperform earned rewards.
- Keep gifts modest, as low-value gifts work nearly as well as costly ones.
- Avoid: calling something free if the customer pays anything beyond unavoidable delivery or collection costs, a banned practice under the DMCC Act 2024.
Unconditional gifts raised spending in shops. Tests in online shops remain scarce.
An unconditional gift at the start of a shop raised spending by up to 32%.
Falk's field experiment with about 10,000 charity letters found donation frequency rose 17% with a small gift and 75% with a large one. In two store field experiments, Fombelle and colleagues found a gift on entry raised spending by 16% to 32%; an online study found gift value mattered little. Tests in online shops remain scarce. On Amazon Vine, free samples raised later ratings mainly by reducing uncertainty about products, not through reciprocity.
Five sources, each checked.
Last reviewed
Only call something free if the customer pays nothing beyond unavoidable delivery or collection costs; otherwise it is a banned practice under the DMCC Act 2024 (Schedule 20). Never charge for, or demand the return of, goods the customer did not ask for.
This is simply a pointer to check, not legal advice. Seek legal advice before you put this principle into action.