The Impact of Online Product Sampling on Customer Behavior

Co-author: Young-Hoon Park

Abstract

Physical experience products such as food, beverages, and apparel suffer from loss of information in ecommerce due to their inherent uncertainty about quality and fit. To overcome this shortcoming in ecommerce, consumer brands and retailers have been adopting strategies that offer customers the try-before-you-buy experience. A relatively new and increasingly popular way in which brands and retailers can render this experience is through online product sampling. We study the impact of online product sampling on customer behavior. Using quasi-experimental data over a period of 13 months from a retailer before and after the launch of online product sampling, we find online product sampling is effective in lifting customer purchases and does so by making treated customers purchase more items per order. We find the impact of online product sampling on purchases post treatment is economically significant, persistent over time, and heterogeneous across customers. Furthermore, we find the impact spills over positively to brand demand and expands to both online and offline channels. We provide evidence that product sampling generates positive affect among treated consumers.