!!!THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FREE STUFF!!!!

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

dough

Reefing since '95
View Badges
Joined
Mar 4, 2007
Messages
244
Reaction score
217
Location
Lawrenceville, GA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
As they say never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Freebies aren’t expected but are appreciated. If it happens to be something that I have or doesn’t fit my vision then I just pay it forward.
 
OP
OP
Battlecorals

Battlecorals

Aquaculturist
View Badges
Joined
Oct 15, 2009
Messages
6,884
Reaction score
15,962
Location
Wisconsin
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
As they say never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Freebies aren’t expected but are appreciated. If it happens to be something that I have or doesn’t fit my vision then I just pay it forward.
right on. That's pretty much my take on this one as well. When I am selecting freebies I always try to make them compliment the rest of the pack. At least keep it around the same caliber of quality. As opposed to just tossing in a browned out Monti or something.
 

Derrick0580

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 6, 2022
Messages
1,707
Reaction score
1,897
Location
Lafayette Indiana
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Not having read through all these replies, imo freebies are always awesome. However I will say that if a particular coral I actually ordered arrives doa, the freebie doesn’t make up for it. If I place an order for a certain coral it was because that was the coral I wanted to begin with. A vendor should never try and use the excuse I sent a free coral as an excuse to not replace a coral the customer actually ordered regardless of value of free coral. Just my two cents on the subject!
 

Haggisman14

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 12, 2017
Messages
1,934
Reaction score
2,333
Location
North Carolina
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Freebies are always great, and it also matters the vendor and where it comes from. Adam's post from 2021 hits the nail on the head, if you're getting a freebie, it would be nice for it to fit in with the other corals that you purchased. If you've got a mixed pack of corals coming, I wouldn't want something that is completely different, and something that might not "fit" within the tank constraints that I'm working with (size, sweeper tentacles, etc).

I can say I have purchased 1 pack from Adam in the past when I had my 29gallon biocube, and the size of all the frags were amazing. I didnt' get any "freebies" per say as in an extra coral. But all the frags ranged from 1-3", had great coloration, were either super thick and chunky, or had multiple branches. In a way I'd rather get corals like that...that feel like freebies b/c you're not starting with a little 1/2" nub!

That's my 2 cents!

1687956191754.png


I loved this pack! Too bad I killed them all! I feel like a bargin bin purchase is in the foreseeable future for me!
 

Joe462

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 28, 2017
Messages
1,604
Reaction score
3,939
Rating - 100%
4   0   0
6a00d83451b36c69e201156e99020b970c_zpsg1pz5zdk.jpg


It’s true! I am often as baffled as I am charmed by some of the responses I’ve gotten over the years about the extra "surprises" that people find when they open their Battleboxes. By "surprises" I simply mean: free stuff - primarily a frag or two.

It’s a strange phenomena indeed. Free stuff can be shrugged off and dismissed, or highly regarded. Sometimes being met with utmost gratitude, other times completely expected, and every so often, flat out frowned upon all together. I have heard it all and I can’t help but be amused by how these good intentions are greeted - be it well or poorly. It was many years ago now, but I will never forget the guy who complained about the size of the free stuff I shipped with his order. I’ll admit, it had me rethinking ever sending freebies ever again, but alas, the notion fortunately faded. I'd say 9 1/2 out of 10 people are very grateful for any extras that they receive, but its still an interesting subject to me.


Let’s talk about the psychology of free stuff.



There's something about value and the concept of what I’ll loosely call “virtual value”, that I find very interesting. If a frag is free, even if it would otherwise be expensive, I think that it's value immediately becomes undermined by the fact that it was not only free, but also not necessarily desired or wanted. I think that’s completely normal behavior; however, the intrinsic value of something free may be difficult to calculate and really is ultimately determined buy the person in possession of the free stuff.


free_zpsh5prncc9.gif

Where am I going with this? Simply to open up a discussion on how you guys see and experience free stuff. It's kind of a petty subject really, but let's go there. I remember years ago when the Red Dragon was still hard to get a hold of, but I had lots of it. I would often send out pieces as freebies. The response was usually very unexpected -surprise and questions of possible mix up, followed by extreme gratitude and a little bewilderment upon confirmation that it was not a mistake. Clearly this was an example where the extra frag exceeded their expectations by a lot. For me, the dragon grew like a weed and I had plenty to go around. It was easy to give away even back then when it was a still fetching nearly 200 a frag.


Normally when it comes to extras I’ll try to tailor them to whatever else was purchased, not just dumping excess montis and the like, but using the extras to round out a pack in a good way. Sometimes I’ll clip branches from better than average colonies I have as well. I like to think that the extras can help soften the blow from any shipping costs, and is ultimately my way of saying thank you for the business. No strings attached. Love, hate or indifference towards them, they are all yours.


What about those times when a frag or two may come in DOA, but there are a couple nice extras included that made the trip in perfect health. Do they that offset the DOA’s in any way, or are these resilient extras simply seen as valueless tagalongs, even if their actual value far exceeds that of the DOA? As tempted as I have been to do so, I have always held back the urge to say something like "well, I know that two in your original order were DOA, but the freebies I sent should make up for it". Just doesn’t really work that way. And that brings me back to the question. How do we actually value the stuff we get free from vendors? What do you guys think? I suppose in the end, any appreciation or value of stuff gotten free, is truly held by their new owners and no one else.
Love the freebies, much more likely to buy from a vendor a second, or third, or fourth .......... time if i get nice freebies. and i mean like you mentioned, not just the stuff that is hard to sell but nice stuff that you happen to have a lot of or new stuff you haven't named yet, or really cool stuff you haven't put on your website yet, or just as you mentioned something that rounds out or complements the rest of the order, to me some of that has more value than the stuff i requested. Frags i didn't know i needed, but i do! lol Love it!
 
Back
Top