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Tasty temptations
By Ann Williams | May 8, 2008
It’s Tuesday night and my domestic worker and I are doing a quick round of shopping at the local Pick ‘n Pay on the way to take her home. As I go past the ready prepared meals section I am ‘accosted’ by a gentleman who reaches onto the shelf and asks if I would like a free supper tonight…
It turns out that Pick ‘n Pay has introduced a new range of pre-prepared dinners, and was giving a free sample of a dinner to their customers. So Dikeledi and I each walked out happy customers with a delicious meal - probably unproportionally happier than putting R20-something in my pocket would have made me.
What this brought home to me is the power of a free sample of food to get customers back and buying. (If they like it of course.) It certainly outstrips the pull of advertising.
Another business that has used food samples extremely sucessfully is Mrs Fields Cookies in the USA. Just over 40 years ago a young mother with no previous business experience, Debbi Fields, opened a business selling only cookies.
Having invested in fitting out a complete store she opened her doors in August 1977 - and almost nobody bought anything! For the first few days they got rid of complete batches of unbought cookies.
Was their product sub-standard? No. Definitely not. As millions of avid Mrs Fields cookie fans over the past four decades will attest. It’s just that she didn’t have the cash for extensive advertising; and passersby just didn’t think to stop in and try the product.
After a few days of negliable sales, they decided to offer passersby pieces of broken cookies rather than turf them out. It was the making of Mrs Fields Cookies. One taste temptation and people were hooked. It was the start of a regular trade and within weeks the store was flourishing.
The rest as they say is history, with there now being almost 500 cookie stores around the world as well as a lovely website for ordering gifts. www.MrsFields.com
So, if you’ve got a tasty new food temptation or a new flavour, try giving a sample - it works!
© Ann Williams
Topics: Promotions, Retail |
2 Responses to “Tasty temptations”
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July 1st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Hi there Anne, i have just been speaking to my sister in the UK, she is a stay at home mommy like myself and was telling me about all the “stuff” products she can send away for and they are given out free for testing at home, i have been searching the Web for similar sites in SA. How does a stay at home mom get into product testing, either to earn money by giving feedback, or just to get some products to test and play with.
Please let me know if you are aware of any sites, myself and my freinds (all stay at home mommies) are interested in testing products and giving feedback, after all, we are the ones who are most often in the shops (all the time, part of our job).
Look forward to hearing from you
Kind regards
Nicky Dixon
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:15 am
Hi Nicky
This is an interesting question. Unfortunately I don’t really have much that I can help you with here as South Africa doesn’t have a strong ethos of testing in this way (the research houses usually do this in-house with selected people), or of ‘mystery shopping’ the way that they do in the USA and the UK.
What I would suggest is that you approach the main research companies. For more information on how to get hold of them, have a look in our 2B Marketing Services Directory here… http://www.2b-marketing.co.za/directory/gen/marketing%20research.html
I know that the Cape Town Fish Market (CTFM) has a ‘mysterdy diner’ scheme whereby on occasion they ask selected members of the public who have applied (fill in one of their quality questionnaires when you go there - or else just phone them) to give them feedback in return for a free meal.