Buy and Try Promotions — How to Increase Product Adoption and Reduce Returns

What’s the first thing you do when your dishwasher breaks down, and you need a new one? We’ll take a guess…you look for reviews and recommendations online for a reliable replacement that won’t stretch your wallet too much. Well, 99.5% of consumers do exactly the same thing.

As a marketer, you know that shoppers take their time with big purchases to avoid future regrets. But what if they could try your dishwasher in their kitchen before buying it —would that sway and speed up their decision? That’s the beauty of buy and try promotions: they remove the financial risk and make it easier for customers to say yes to your products.

While in recent years, the fashion and home furnishing industries have heavily relied on room planners and virtual try-on software to boost sales and reduce returns, buy and try promotions are the ace up the sleeve for any industries like home appliances, consumer electronics, and automotive. This promo strategy lets customers try out your products for a free trial period, making them feel more connected to them and more likely to buy them, while also cutting down on returns. In this blog post, we’ll explore how companies like Starbucks and Tesla use buy and try promotions to boost customer loyalty and product adoption. Plus, we’ll share data-driven strategies to minimise the already low return rates. Ready to get rolling?

Letting customers try your product before they buy helps ease their hesitation and gives them peace of mind, so they can explore new options without financial commitment. But reducing the barriers to purchase is not the only factor that makes buy and try promotions work wonders for boosting sales and adoption rates. Here are a few more reasons why they’re so effective:

Boost Customer Confidence

When there’s no financial risk, customers are more confident in trying new products, and they might also feel good about doing that. According to Hawk Incentives, 40% of consumers ‘feel smart’ when they can find the best deals, and what better deal than trying a new phone, home security device, or mattress for free? This means buy and try campaigns attract new customers like magnets and can help you gain market share by enticing competitors’ aficionados to try your products.

Build Brand Trust

Buy and try campaigns show that you are fully confident about the quality of your product and care about keeping customers happy, which only makes people love your brand even more.

Encourage Positive Reviews and Word-of-Mouth

When customers try your product first-hand before committing to it they are less likely to leave bad reviews. And there’s more. If you make returns and refunds easy for unsatisfied customers, they’ll be impressed and might tell their friends and family about their good experience. Think about it: you’ve just turned a potentially negative situation into a positive customer experience that could encourage other shoppers to try out your brand!

How many times have you heard about how the endowment effect impacts consumer behaviour? That’s exactly what buy and try promos rely on: the psychological bias that when customers use your product during the free trial period, they create a bond with it and start feeling like it’s already theirs. But does this really boost the chance they’ll buy it? Well, leading companies like Starbucks and Tesla have shown that, when used properly, buy and try campaigns can seriously boost sales and customer loyalty. A recent paper analysed how these two companies strategically leverage the endowment effect.

For Starbucks, when they write your name on the coffee cup, it makes the cup feel like it’s already yours. This personal touch increases the chances you’ll buy the coffee again because it makes you feel special. It’s like marking your territory!

Tesla instead lets you test drive their cars, making you feel like the car is already yours. By the time you’re done driving, giving up the car feels like you’re losing something you own, which might encourage you to buy it.

Both companies have found that these strategies not only make customers happy but also lead to more sales because people tend to value things more if they feel like they own them. And in the case of buy and try promos, more sales means fewer returns!

Despite the low return rates linked to buy and try promotions, returns still happen at times. It’s an ugly truth, but we have to face it. Yet, not all hope is lost because we dove into the data on returns for electronics and appliances and found some clear patterns and practical strategies to tackle them in your buy and try campaigns.

Here they are:

• Consumers most often return small home appliances, like blenders (28.5%) and gaming consoles (25.2%). How about running buy and try deals on pricier or more specialised items like refrigerators (5.7%) or home office tech (4.8%) that people usually don’t return as much?
• Electronics return rates in January can be as high as 30%. This means the holiday season is not the best time to roll out buy-and-try promos. So, use them to promote your air conditioning system during the summer or your tumble dryer for Black Friday, and choose other promotions like cashback or gift with purchase for your holiday campaigns.
• Customer frustration with product setup and installation is one of the main reasons for returns. This is according to a white paper recently published by The Blumberg Advisory Group. So, why not take a proactive approach to prevent these unnecessary issues? Make sure your instructions are super clear and easy to follow. Or better yet, create a quick setup video to make installation a total no-brainer and make everyone’s life easier.
• Electronics have higher return rates when purchased in big-box retail stores (The Blumberg Advisory Group white paper). At times, staff at bigger retail chain stores aren’t as well-trained or ready to handle customer questions. So, make sure your retailers are fully equipped to support customers who participate in your buy and try offers and provide 24/7 customer support on your promotional website.
• Unclear product description and promotion terms and conditions. To cut down on returns from items not matching descriptions (9.8% according to The Blumberg Advisory Group white paper), make sure your product details are clear and accurate, use good-quality images and videos, and include customer reviews and Q&A. Also, be clear about the terms and conditions of your buy-and-try promotion, what products are eligible for the offer and your return policy. These steps help customers know exactly what they’re getting, reducing mismatched expectations and returns. 
• Fraud. Over 4% of returns (The Blumberg Advisory Group white paper) are actually fraud attempts. Customers might try to use expired promotions, return items that weren’t part of the promo, or even create fake invoices! To prevent this, make sure to verify all claims thoroughly by checking customer details and proof of purchase, so you only process legitimate returns and refunds. 

In conclusion, it’s clear that letting customers try your products before they commit to purchasing them can quickly boost product adoption and build long-term customer engagement and trust. On top of that, buy and try promotions give people a sense of ownership over the product, making them more likely to buy it and less likely to return it.

Plus, by tackling the reasons behind product returns in advance, you can come up with solid strategies to reduce them even more. Whether that means tweaking the timing of the promotion to dodge those high-return periods or ramping up support to help customers set up their products, every move is key.

Here at Benamic, we’ve got you covered with a complete promotional solution that handles your buy and try promotion from A to Z, including planning, preventing fraud, and managing returns and refunds.

If you’re curious about how buy and try campaigns could work for your brand, give us a shout! Our promotion experts are here to chat and help you figure it all out.