Free Samples - What's The Catch?

One of the most common questions we get at Thomas Clipper is ‘do you offer free samples?’.

The answer is no: that's because we believe in creativity, independence and reducing waste.

Find out more below, or check out our Discovery Set here. It's not free, but it's absolutely worth it.

We Believe In Better Scents

There’s a good reason that the big players give away free sample sets. Simply put it’s an easy way to gain new customers. But this only works if the scent that’s being given away is as inoffensive as possible to as many people as possible.

The result is that the big players are incentivised to release focus grouped ‘lowest common denominator’ scents. Which, as you might have noticed, is exactly what happens all too often…

By covering our costs (just!) on our Discovery Sets, we are able to make new and exciting scents. We think that's important.

We Believe In Independence & Creativity

There’s another dirty secret in the ‘free sample’ industry. The big players use free samples as one of a series of tactics (including retailer pressure, loss leading scents, outsourcing production etc.) to muscle smaller producers out of the market.

Even if we price our Discovery Sets as low as we possibly can (and believe us, we do!) it’s hard to compete with the allure of ‘free’.

But without the independent creators, what have we got? A dozen or so focus grouped scents to choose from? Any colour as long as it’s bland? Something as important as scent deserves better.

We Believe In Reducing Waste

To create free samples at the lowest possible cost, big fragrance will industrially produce them in runs of millions of units. For a comparison, we usually hand make our runs at about 250 units at a time.

You’ll be unsurprised to hear that massive production and low/no cost inevitably leads to undervaluing of the product by retailers, who will happily throw out a box of thousand of samples when the Next Big Thing arrives - or even just the same scent but with packaging featuring a new influencer…

It also has a similar effect on customers. We’re all a bit less likely to have researched a product in advance if we don’t have to pay for it. This in turn means that even when a free sample gets pocketed by a customer, it’s far more likely to be popped in the bin (or worse, not even tried).

UPDATE: our new Discovery Set (pictured below) uses half the cardboard of our previous set, reducing wastage and making the set more portable.

Better Than Free?

Ask yourself: how do you value your time? Is it worth a day of your time to try the newest free scent from a factory? Or would you rather shell out a little for a set of seven new scents handmade by a team that actually cares?

If for you it's the latter, we'd urge you to say no to the free sample and consider shelling out a little on a paid Discovery Set from a brand that looks like it matches your style. If you do, you’ll end up with something much more interesting and you’ll be helping to support the independent perfume world while reducing waste.

That sounds better than free to us…