Why It's Important for Businesses to Offer Samples and Trials

Undertaking any kind of interior design or home renovation job can be a big deal. Our homes are reflections of our personal tastes and preferences, so it’s important that our design choices are absolutely perfect.

For businesses that sell homeware and similar products, offering samples and trials is absolutely essential. Why is this? Read on to find out.

Giving Customers Options

There is no easy decision when it comes to home renovations and interior design. Everyone has different tastes; what looks fantastic to one person might look absolutely terrible to the next.

For homeware stores, this represents a dilemma. If they have a limited number of options on offer, there is every chance that a customer will leave having found nothing that appeals to them.

Offering samples and trials is the perfect solution. This increases the options available for customers, allowing them to peruse a great range of potential choices across various shapes, styles and designs.

The more options you have for customers, the more likely they are to choose your business as their homeware store of choice. They’ll know that visiting your store, be it online or in a physical location, will offer them the widest selection of options and the best chance of finding something perfect for their home.

Testing Products in the Home Environment

When someone is looking to renovate their home, whether that’s by painting the walls, installing a new bathroom suite or laying down parquet wood floors, they are highly unlikely to make a decision straight away.

Even relatively small design choices can fundamentally alter how an interior space is perceived and characterised. That’s why homeowners stress and fret over these choices for so long, and why they can often feel completely frozen by indecision.

When a customer visits a homeware store, they will be met with a wide range of options. This could be flooring, curtains or wall paint. Whatever it is they are looking to buy, it can be difficult to visualise how it would actually look in their home.

This can result in homeowners making the wrong choice or worse, leaving your store empty-handed as they cannot decide what it is they want.

The best way to stop this from happening is to offer samples and trials. For example, let’s say a customer comes to your store looking to buy some paint for their walls. It can be extremely difficult to look at a colour in a store or an online shop and picture how it would actually look in the home.

To help, you can provide them with small squares of particular colours. Customers can take these home and get a sense of how the colour would interact with their existing interior décor. This can make the process much easier and can help customers reach a decision faster.

Improving Brand Reputation

Running a business is tough. You have to deal with a lot of different things, not least competition from your rivals. Ensuring your brand is perceived positively in the eyes of your customers is the key if you want to stand out among the competition.

By offering samples and trials, you will be demonstrating that you care about your customers and that you’re willing to go the extra mile to help them with their purchases.

If your competitors are not doing this, or if they are not doing this to the same extent, who are customers going to turn to first?

Inventory Management

Finally, offering samples and trials can be a fantastic way of managing stock and inventory. This is particularly relevant for small businesses or businesses that operate purely online.

Without a large commercial space or warehouse, keeping enough stock to meet the demands of customers can be extremely difficult.

This is where offering samples comes in. These are small testers of products that can be easily stored in large quantities. If a customer takes a sample and then decides they want to purchase it, you can make an order of that product from your supplier.

This means you do not have to hold large quantities of products that you might not necessarily sell, allowing you to streamline and optimise your business operations.

Conclusion

If you’re a business owner – from construction to IT – offering samples and trials can be an excellent strategy. It gives customers more options and allows them to test products in their home environment – just like ordering a jacket to try on. It can also improve the reputation of your brand and help you with inventory management.