How do you feel about gift with purchases?
Not my thing at all! It’s like… too much in tiny sizes at once for me.
— Christine
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19 Comments
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Love them. They are great for travel especially the cleansers. The other stuff I end up gifting to friends who love getting freebies.
It really depends on the gift. I like getting perfume samples. There are a couple of products I use on a regular basis that I only buy when there’s a sale or gift-with-purchase: Estée Lauder Double Wear and Clinique Mild Facial Soap. Those usually come with gifts that are bigger than sample size or even full size. I like getting the travel size moisturizers and face washes because I use them when I go on vacation. I also like getting the gift-with-purchase zipper pouches from Clinique. If I don’t like the gifts, I have coworkers that will gladly take them.
I love them! I’m not in a rush to get products, so I’ll usually wait to shop until I get a gift with purchase offer in my email that I like (especially for perfume minis). The last awesome one I got was from MAC and included 2 full-sized lipsticks, a mascara, and some minis. Those become holiday presents. However, there are times where I just opt out of the gift even if I qualify.
It all depends what’s in it. Clarins always has good ones with travel sizes of skin and body care products that I actually use (rather than tiny, one use packets or teeny sizes of cosmetics). They generally have 3 or 4 different assortments of skin care for different “ages”. Elizabeth Arden had a great one a few years ago with two fantastic eyeshadow palettes in it and a lot of other good items (some crummy brushes but everything else was really good and it’s where I discovered that they have a really good bi-phase eye makeup remover…the bottle in the GWP was a decent size…maybe 2 or 4 ounces).
Ifff… I’m somewhere in between.
I like a good gift with purchase, especially when I get a full size of a product I already use; or I don’t have to purchase mascara, Paula’s Choice BHA exfoliant and hair styling products for years 😅; or when I have my bag stocked with mini moisturizers and SPFs I use as hand cream on the go.
But I hate the wastefulness of getting products I don’t need. Maybe brands should offer more options of picking a gift with purchase?
It also depends on the brand. For example I never disliked or found useless a gift with purchase from Paula’s Choice. And I like that at Sephora I can choose what I get for point perks or those offers with $25/35 purchase. But MAC has usually the bottom of the barrel as gift with purchase.
I only like them when they are either a full-size item or just one or two deluxe size, generous samples. Even though I’m not a big EL fangirl, their GWP deals are VERY generous!
I feel like I always end up ruining the piddly amount of product while trying to open the sample-sized package to get the product so it’s a no for me.
I just forgo samples because anymore they are all packaged in those small, hard to tear open plastic packets that you have to squeeze the product out of and typically it’s for two uses but I only use it once and then it dries out.
I do like deluxe samples, though. The packaging for them is sometimes a mini version of the actual product size and you get a week’s worth or at least enough to see the product’s effects.
I assumed gifts with purchase were like the samples you select during the checkout process. Oops.
GWPs lure me in but it depends on what is being gifted – usually it is not some thing I would buy, even on sale. The only retailer I don’t mind GWPs from is MAC because I use just about everything from them.
Depends. A good offer will get me to pull the trigger on a purchase I’d already been mulling over. I really enjoy deluxe samples of things I’m genuinely interested in trying, but having sensitivities to common ingredients makes them more of a waste ultimately. I find Sephora’s single deluxe sample option better than Ulta’s. Ulta tends to put a lot of….look, I don’t want to call it outright trash brand samples, but of the samples included in a really large GWP ($150+purchase) from them, I found one item I thought was worthwhile.
I used to really like them and shopped around various stores and purchased X amount. Great for work and travel.
The past few years? Way too many cheap bags. Gifts years ago sometimes had a decent tote bag. Som of the bags have smelled and are useless, Some customers complained about the bags to the sales rep. We all have lots of bags. Why can’t there be a spa washcloth or something else.
Gifts have become repetitive. Same stuff which is great if you use it. Same lipstick shade. I end up keeping some of the gift and donate parts I don’t use. If I don’t like the face moisturizer, I use it as body cream.
The spend threshold has steadily increased and the gift value has decreased. Do I want to spend $85 on products to get a $120 gift? Do I want to spend $150 or more to get the better gift? Depends. If you don’t pre-order here, the step-up gift is gone in a day or two. Some stores just bring in stock from the warehouse and sometimes you can’t find what you want or need, hence one must pre-order. I think only the Bay and Shoppers in Canada offer gifts, Otherwise, it is the brand’s website. Little variety. I do like some sort of reward for my loyalty to X brand, but I would rather get 15% off instead.
It really depends on the brand and what’s in with the GWP – sometimes they contain toners, which I would never use or lipsticks in shades that don’t work for me. Generally Clinique and Clarins offer more GWP than most other brands (especially here in Aus), but sometimes I have received them when purchasing from CT – a moisturising sample – which has been quite good.
I don’t really look at GWP so much now and some brands I wouldn’t bother.
I do think, though, that some of those tiny samples are not really environmentally friendly anymore.
I’m very nostalgic about them. My mom used to give me her Lancome GWP when she’d buy skincare because she doesn’t use color cosmetics. They would come products that you could do your whole face/look with–eye, cheeks, lips. Until I was in my 20s, my entire makeup collection was literally only GWP items. But Lancome’s GWPs aren’t as awesome as they used to be, which makes me sad.
I wait to make my regular purchases for when there is a gift. I especially enjoy mascara, perfumes, and lip products.
Because my hair is picky and my skin sensitive, I save all the shampoos, conditioners, styling products, cleansers, lotions, etc. and drop them off at my local shelter.
Dropping them off at a shelter is such a good idea!
I like some of them. I am an eye cream and neck cream junkie. Always want to try new ones and I can tell from a sample if it is a good one for me or not. Neck cream has to sink in ASAP. Eye cream needs to hydrate but not make my makeup run or sting my eyes. I won’t spend $ to purchase A gift like Lan one does at holiday. I like Claims gifts. If I get things I won’t use, I take them to our free community dinner we have every Monday night. It’s open to anyone. A different church or restaurant sponsors it each week.
If it is something worthwhile yes, but most times it’s not. I took all the bags that I received as GWP to work and gave them away to my coworkers because there are only so many bags that you can use. Samples that I can take on trips are nice, I use them all the time. If I have to pay for a GWP it’s not really a gift so those ones are out. Like someone else commented I would just rather a percentage off my purchase.
I like them! It’s a great way to try new things instead of buying a full size product and not liking it. If I don’t like things I can always give them to co-workers.
I used to love GWP’s but I think they have become less interesting. I used to shop to get a GWP, these days I just buy what I need but try to get the things I buy on repeat either when there’s a sale or when I get an interesting GWP. So I guess I have to say I rather like them.
The best ones I’ve received in the last five or so years both came from Charlotte Tilbury, one was a full size lipstick in a shade I wouldn’t have bought but absolutely love (Glowing Jen), the other was a full size eyeshadow quad with shimmery shades, useable alone or as toppers.
The worst GWP’s here are from MAC, you get to chose two products out of three, I mean come on, it’s MAC they could easily offer ten to chose from.
It really depends on what they are. They’re fun to get in that Cracker Jack prize in a box kind of way but a lot of times they’re products I don’t use or have no use for. Too many little things all at once then become a clutter problem that I have to deal with and I’m trying to minimize that. But I’ve gotten GWPs that were things like tote bags, or once I got a bath robe, etc. I like those a lot because they’re things I actually get use out of.