Free Coffe Mugs At Retail Stores
There is some buzz about websites and retail stores giving out free coffee mugs or discount mugs in recent months. This is of course primarily to drive traffic to the stores and hopefully convert it to sales.
But, for us consumers, it is really free? There are two things that we need to consider when going for freebies such as this, first is the time spend on looking and getting the item, secondly is the thing or information that we need to give in order to get it.
There are many websites that offers things with no charges but unfortunately, more than 50% are hoax and it is no better than a 10 to 20 percent discount. With so many websites giving out false information, some time would be spend looking for the real information.
On average, you would have to spend between 3-5 hours looking for it and reading the instructions before you can get really get the coffee mugs without paying any money. Let’s assumed that you are paid $80 per day then that 5 hours of searching is a loss of $50 isn’t that so?
If you have found some simple part time job, you would be richer by $50. But, instead of that, you have got for yourself a mug that is worth probably $9?
Personally, I think that the amount of time spends searching for it and sometimes queueing hours for free stuff are not worth the time investment.
And on top of that, the things like the mugs that you are getting are not really free. Usually, at the very minimum you would have to give your particulars, like your name, address and contact details.
These details are known as leads and depending on the companies that requires this information, it can be sold for as much as $5-10 per lead. So, every time you hand out your particulars, you are inviting advertisements, hoards of it, to be send to you.
So, while you are not giving cash to get the mugs in this case, you are giving them opportunity to use your personal details to at least earn $5-10, maybe more by selling it away as leads.
And with these particulars, they can keep on reselling them as leads, potentially earning many more $5.
Now, let’s just say you spend 5 hours looking for this deal that give you a mug for free and in return you have to give them your personal particulars. Overall, you would lose about $50 in loss man hours and also making them richer by at least $5.
Thinking about it, it is not really worth looking for it and in fact getting it, don’t you agree? You are better off shopping for it in a shopping mall and buying one that you really like.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Juminten is a professional IT Consultant who work as a freelance
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