Promotional Product Samples: Magento 2 Extensions & Best Practices
Product samples marketing is an easy and effective way to promote products and help customers purchase products that best suit their needs.
For example, when a customer is in a typical brick-and-mortar store, sample products are an already ‘built-in’ option that helps customers choose something that online stores rarely offer. Imagine that you can provide the same tailored service level and support to your clients from your ecommerce site. Everything from fabrics to construction materials to cosmetics, even food! Online shoppers could have the opportunity to feel, taste, touch, and smell all these products and understand if it’s what they truly want.
You can help them out by implementing a sampling program as The Fabric Store did. In addition to ordering standard products from the catalog, they also offer the ability to order samples of their fabrics to try out in your own space before you buy:
Product Sampling Marketing & Its Benefits for Business
Shopping gives enjoyment, but still, it demands too much effort.
For industries such as cosmetics, beauty, and perfumes, promotional product samples could help win your customers’ hearts, as they may feel frustrated by the many different brands and products offering the same thing.
Just allowing them to try anything of this might immediately turn them into regular customers and enthusiastic brand evangelists.
For other industries offering more exclusive products, such as home & interior items — fabric or paint swatches, merchants can provide their users with an authentic experience of using products before committing to purchasing.
When buying these types of products, one of the most influential factors for buyers is the quality and brand reputation, so it is so essential to create this emotional bond with your end consumers.
All in all, there are three central values that product sampling marketing brings to online businesses, such as:
- ✓ Reaching new audience and customers;
- ✓ Persuading customers to make a purchase;
- ✓ Promoting a new product line or a luxurious segment of products;
- ✓ Increasing brand awareness and customer loyalty;
- ✓ Boosting an average order value.
Of course, it is advisable to knowingly conduct research and understand whether your audience needs such a decision. Also, take a look at examples from various industries and niches that are doing this successfully.
Sampling Marketing Strategy Best Practices
Samples on the Checkout
Aveda, a vegan natural beauty products store, offers different samples on the checkout stage. On the right side of the web page, right next to the shopping cart content, users could view paid samples in the ‘On-the-Go Faves’ section and add them immediately to the bag.
A fascinating fact is that there are no samples anywhere else on the website. It’s a very subtle and user-friendly solution that does not distract from the shopping process and smoothly complements the checkout page composition.
Samples on Separate Product Pages
Cox & Cox, homeware, home decorations & gifts website provides shoppers with samples on dedicated product pages, where users can view product images, details, and descriptions. Besides, shoppers can choose particular attributes of the sample from a range of offered options. Alternatively, users can also scroll below and see similar samples to add them to their cart.
By the way, samples are a must-have functionality for home & decor online stores, as most often the products are pretty expensive, and the colors or textures may not meet the customer’s expectations.
Samples on Category Pages
Flexico, a packaging and merchandising retailer, allocated a separate category page for their samples and highlighted this marketing trick throughout their website content. For instance, they placed information about this opportunity in their benefits section and developed a separate sticky bar with sample promotion. Users can also go directly to the product details page with each sample and take a closer look at it.
The implementation of such solutions requires quite a lot of resources. Ready-made solutions, like modules and extensions, can cover basic needs, then Magento developers can further expand their capabilities to make them more sophisticated.
Sample Product Extensions for Magento 2 Stores
#1 Sample Product by MageAnts
- ✓ Provide your purchasers with an option to order samples from the product webpages and completely customize your offer to make it more user-friendly with buttons and CTAs.
- ✓ Set a maximum quantity limit and display an error notification if users try to add more items than expected.
- ✓ Efficiently manage samples and orders in the admin panel.
Price: $149
#2 Product Samples by Mageside
- ✓ Choose any price for samples on the backend, even free of charge.
- ✓ Put a limit for samples per order.
- ✓ Manage samples in the same way as other types of products.
- ✓ Connect samples with specific products without difficulty, which you will instantly see on product details pages.
Price: $112
#3 Sample Products Magento 2 by RedChamps
- ✓ Make samples restricted to particular items or even customer segments.
- ✓ Samples and other types of products could be in a single order.
- ✓ Configure prices of sample products.
- ✓ Set prices for samples as fixed or in percentage.
Price: $59
#4 Sample Product Order Extension for Magento 2
- ✓ Get complete control of the extension from your Magento admin panel.
- ✓ Easily and quickly enable or disable samples on any product in 5 minutes.
- ✓ Set different prices on various samples and for various customer groups.
- ✓ Configure weight for each sample.
- ✓ Use the extension if you run a multi-store on Magento.
- ✓ Make it possible to add and customize label buttons for samples.
Price: $45
#5 Magento2 Advanced Sample Orders by DCKAP
- ✓ Configure sample prices on different levels, such as a product or a general one.
- ✓ Make sample products paid or free if needed.
- ✓ Quickly identify samples in any order, both in front-end and back-end.
- ✓ Add samples for different types of products, including single, configurable, grouped, and bundle products.
Price: $399
Conclusion
As you can see, it’s pretty easy to add and manage sample product functionality. Considering that sampling is one of the most effective tactics to increase sales, it makes sense to give it a try in your store. If you need additional custom Magento development or have any questions, we’re here to help.
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