{"id":20120,"date":"2017-12-29T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T09:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smarttan.com\/news\/?p=20120"},"modified":"2017-12-28T14:50:05","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T19:50:05","slug":"free-better-than-a-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Free Better than a Discount?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Of course free is better for the customer, but it may also make for a more effective\u00a0promotion in the long-run than a discount, according to research.<\/p>\n<p>A study in the <i>Journal of Consumer Research<\/i> found that offering a discount devalues a product significantly in the minds of consumers, while offering something free as a promotion has little affect on the perceived value. Consumers that received free bread sticks as a promotion from a pizzeria said they would be willing to pay $5.06 for them once the promotion was over \u2013 just slightly less than their perceived value without the promotion. On the other hand, consumers who received the breadsticks at a discounted price of 50 cents were only willing to pay $2.76 post-promotion.<\/p>\n<p>So, keep in mind that offering steep discounts may boost sales in the short term, but could actually be a losing proposition if it decreases the perceived value of your services and products in the minds of your clients. Instead of offering discounts, try adding value by throwing in a freebie add-on. If the freebie is paired with a high-end product or service, it could actually increase the perceived value of the free product moving forward.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jcr-admin.org\/files\/pressreleases\/082013081654_PalmeiraRelease.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here to read more about the study.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of course free is better for the customer, but it may also make for a more effective\u00a0promotion in the long-run than a discount, according to research. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that offering a discount devalues a product significantly in the minds of consumers, while offering something free as a promotion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is Free Better than a Discount? - Smart Tan News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Of course free is better for the customer, but it may also make for a more effective\u00a0promotion in the long-run than a discount, according to research.  A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that offering a discount devalues a product significantly in the minds of consumers, while offering something free as a promotion has little affect on the perceived value. Consumers that received free bread sticks as a promotion from a pizzeria said they would be willing to pay $5.06 for them once the promotion was over \u2013 just slightly less than their perceived value without the promotion. On the other hand, consumers who received the breadsticks at a discounted price of 50 cents were only willing to pay $2.76 post-promotion.  So, keep in mind that offering steep discounts may boost sales in the short term, but could actually be a losing proposition if it decreases the perceived value of your services and products in the minds of your clients. Instead of offering discounts, try adding value by throwing in a freebie add-on. If the freebie is paired with a high-end product or service, it could actually increase the perceived value of the free product moving forward.  Click here to read more about the study.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Free Better than a Discount? - Smart Tan News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Of course free is better for the customer, but it may also make for a more effective\u00a0promotion in the long-run than a discount, according to research.  A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that offering a discount devalues a product significantly in the minds of consumers, while offering something free as a promotion has little affect on the perceived value. Consumers that received free bread sticks as a promotion from a pizzeria said they would be willing to pay $5.06 for them once the promotion was over \u2013 just slightly less than their perceived value without the promotion. On the other hand, consumers who received the breadsticks at a discounted price of 50 cents were only willing to pay $2.76 post-promotion.  So, keep in mind that offering steep discounts may boost sales in the short term, but could actually be a losing proposition if it decreases the perceived value of your services and products in the minds of your clients. Instead of offering discounts, try adding value by throwing in a freebie add-on. If the freebie is paired with a high-end product or service, it could actually increase the perceived value of the free product moving forward.  Click here to read more about the study.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Tan News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SmartTan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-29T09:00:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Coupons-1-3-17.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1362\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"smarttannews\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmartTan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SmartTan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"smarttannews\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"smarttannews\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/#\/schema\/person\/722dc7049af55e0ed743d67ce9ed4819\"},\"headline\":\"Is Free Better than a Discount?\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-29T09:00:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/\"},\"wordCount\":210,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Coupons-1-3-17.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/\",\"name\":\"Is Free Better than a Discount? - Smart Tan News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/free-better-than-a-discount\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Coupons-1-3-17.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-29T09:00:14+00:00\",\"description\":\"Of course free is better for the customer, but it may also make for a more effective\u00a0promotion in the long-run than a discount, according to research. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that offering a discount devalues a product significantly in the minds of consumers, while offering something free as a promotion has little affect on the perceived value. Consumers that received free bread sticks as a promotion from a pizzeria said they would be willing to pay $5.06 for them once the promotion was over \u2013 just slightly less than their perceived value without the promotion. On the other hand, consumers who received the breadsticks at a discounted price of 50 cents were only willing to pay $2.76 post-promotion. So, keep in mind that offering steep discounts may boost sales in the short term, but could actually be a losing proposition if it decreases the perceived value of your services and products in the minds of your clients. Instead of offering discounts, try adding value by throwing in a freebie add-on. If the freebie is paired with a high-end product or service, it could actually increase the perceived value of the free product moving forward. 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