Think about the last time a store handed you something free, just for walking in the door. Maybe it was a sample of coffee, a small cosmetic product, or a mini chocolate bar. It probably felt nice. But did it change the way you shopped that day? A new study spanning two real-world retail experiments and five laboratory studies suggests it very likely did. Researchers found that giving customers a gift at the start of a shopping trip, with absolutely no purchase required, led to significant increases in both how much customers spent and how loyal they felt toward the brand. The research was published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
What motivated the research
Corporate gift giving is a booming practice, with an estimated annual value of $242 billion and growing by roughly 8% each year. Companies like Starbucks, Sephora, and Costco already hand out freebies in various forms. But most of what researchers know about gifts in a business-to-consumer setting involves gifts that are earned, meaning the customer had to do something first, like make a purchase or accumulate loyalty points, before receiving a reward.
Paul W. Fombelle of Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, along with colleagues Clay M. Voorhees at the University of Alabama, Amie Gustafsson at Karlstad University, Lars Witell at Linköping University, and Anders Gustafsson at the BI Norwegian School of Management, wanted to investigate what happens when the gift comes with no conditions at all. Their central question: can giving customers something for free, before they buy anything, change how they behave and how they feel about the store?
Existing research had a notable gap. Studies on promotional rewards and loyalty programs had rarely examined how the value of a gift might matter, and they almost always looked at gifts given after a purchase. The research team saw an opportunity to study what they call “unconditional gifts,” items given with no past or future purchase requirement, delivered right at the start of the shopping experience.
How gratitude and obligation work differently
A key concept in this research is the rule of reciprocity, a social norm describing how people feel compelled to return a favor when someone gives them something. The researchers argue that this rule actually involves two distinct emotional responses that often get lumped together: gratitude and obligation.
Gratitude is a warm, positive feeling of thankfulness for receiving something generous. Obligation, sometimes called indebtedness, is a less comfortable sensation, a sense that you now “owe” the giver something in return. The team hypothesized that these two feelings would lead to different outcomes. Gratitude, being emotional and relationship-oriented, would primarily strengthen loyalty. Obligation, being more transactional and driven by a desire to clear a perceived debt, would primarily push customers to spend more during their visit.
Testing the idea in real stores
The research team conducted their first field experiment in partnership with a large general merchandise store in Northern Europe. The store had a designed walkway, similar to an Ikea layout, that guided customers through all sections before reaching the exit. On treatment days, customers entering the store received a ready-to-drink canned coffee valued at about $5, given freely with no purchase necessary. On control days, customers received nothing unusual. A university research team stationed near the exit asked shoppers for permission to photograph their receipts.
The results were striking. Customers who received the free coffee spent an average of $42.83, compared to $32.53 among those who did not receive a gift. That is a 31.66% increase in spending.
A second field experiment took place at a large grocery store. This time, the team tested three conditions: no gift, a physical gift of a one-pound package of brand-name ground coffee worth about $8, and a voucher redeemable for that same coffee just inside the store entrance. Customers in the physical gift group spent $69.23 on average, those with the voucher spent $62.81, and the control group spent $54.26. Both gift formats led to increased spending, with the physical gift producing a 27.59% bump and the voucher producing a 15.76% bump relative to the control. The difference between the voucher and the physical gift was not statistically significant, meaning the researchers could not confirm that one format clearly outperformed the other.
Moving into the lab to understand why
To dig into the emotional process behind these spending increases, the team ran a series of five laboratory experiments. These used AI-generated video scenarios to simulate realistic shopping experiences. Participants watched videos of interactions at a gourmet grocery store or a coffee house, where they were either greeted normally or greeted and offered a free gift. They then answered survey questions measuring their feelings of gratitude, obligation, loyalty, and how much they intended to spend.
The lab studies confirmed the pattern. Receiving an unconditional gift increased both gratitude and obligation. These two feelings, in turn, were linked to different outcomes. Gratitude was more strongly connected to loyalty, the intention to return and recommend the store. Obligation was more strongly connected to transactional spending, the amount a customer planned to spend right then and there. The team also tested whether alternative explanations like surprise, guilt, or simple happiness could account for the results. They found that gratitude and obligation consistently outperformed those alternatives as explanations for the spending and loyalty effects.
Does the gift’s price tag matter?
One of the most practical questions for any retailer is how much to spend on the gift. In Study 3, the team tested gift values ranging from $0.50 (a single coffee pod) all the way up to $16 (a large bag of coffee). They found that every gift condition, regardless of value, significantly increased gratitude, obligation, loyalty, and spending compared to receiving no gift at all. Higher-value gifts did produce slightly more gratitude, but the differences in obligation, loyalty, and spending across gift values were relatively consistent. In simple terms, even a very cheap gift produced meaningful results.
This finding suggests that businesses do not need to invest heavily in the gift itself to see benefits. A token gesture can carry much of the effect, supporting the old saying that “it’s the thought that counts.”
New customers versus loyal regulars
Many companies reserve their free gifts for store openings and other events designed to attract new customers. The team tested whether unconditional gifts work differently for first-time visitors compared to returning customers. In Study 4, participants were assigned to either a “new customer” or “existing customer” scenario and either received a gift or did not.
The results showed no significant difference between the two groups. Both new and existing customers responded positively to the unconditional gift, with similar levels of increased gratitude, obligation, loyalty, and spending. This means businesses may not need to restrict their gift-giving programs to new customer acquisition efforts.
Gifts versus earned rewards
Loyalty reward programs, where customers earn points or perks based on spending, are widespread. Starbucks, airlines, and countless retailers run them. In Study 5, the researchers compared an unconditional gift to an earned reward of the same item. Both produced increases in gratitude and spending. However, unconditional gifts generated significantly more obligation than earned rewards. The explanation is intuitive: when a customer earns a reward, they feel they have already paid for it through past spending and effort. With an unconditional gift, the customer has done nothing to “deserve” it, which creates a stronger sense of owing something back.
What this means for businesses
The findings offer several practical takeaways. First, an unconditional gift-giving program can be a straightforward way to increase both immediate spending and longer-term loyalty. Even inexpensive gifts appear to produce these effects, which could make the return on investment attractive.
Second, businesses do not need to limit gifts to new customers or special occasions. The effects appear consistent across different customer segments. Third, unconditional gifts may serve as a useful complement to, rather than a replacement for, existing loyalty programs. Since gifts generate more obligation than earned rewards, deploying them alongside traditional reward systems could amplify overall results.
There are important caveats. The field experiments measured spending during a single shopping trip, and the lab experiments relied on participants imagining a scenario rather than living through it. The researchers did not track whether the effects lasted beyond the immediate shopping visit. It is possible that the power of an unconditional gift fades over time or diminishes if customers come to expect it. The team also noted that they were not able to examine what specific products customers added to their baskets, only overall spending totals.
The study was also limited in its ability to capture how feelings of gratitude and obligation might shift during the shopping experience itself. A customer might feel a strong sense of indebtedness immediately after receiving a gift, but that feeling could weaken or strengthen as they browse the aisles. Future research, the authors suggest, should explore the long-term effects of unconditional gifts and whether repeated gift-giving eventually loses its impact as customers start to anticipate the freebie.
