> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://conversion.club/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Gift, Sample or Tiers: What Should You Offer to Fill the Cart? - URL: https://conversion.club/playbook/gift-sample-or-tiers-what-should-you-offer-to-fill-the-cart/ - Published: 2026-10-01T20:45:13.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T20:25:38.000Z - Description: A gift above a set amount to raise the cart, a sample to encourage discovery, tiers when your customers buy often. All three leave your price intact, as long as you don't give away what you already sell. - Author: Jeremie Werner - Tags: Increase average order value, #playbook, Cart Offer a gift above a set amount when you want to raise the cart, a sample when you want people to discover a product, and tiers when your customers buy often. All three [leave your price intact](https://conversion.club/have-sales-become-a-prerequisite-for-selling-online/), on one condition that people often forget: don't give away what you already sell. --- ## The benchmark Compare what each option costs you with what it's worth to the person receiving it. A gift that costs you €4 and that a customer values at €15 can carry more weight than a €10 discount, for less money. These figures are a made-up example, so redo them with your own cost prices. The threshold also has to be within reach. One clothing brand the authors work with is preparing a test of this kind. Its orders cluster around €90, the price of its best-selling piece, and we proposed a threshold of €99, a gap a small accessory is enough to close. The gift, worth around fifteen euros, shows up in the cart before it's earned, grayed out, along with the amount still missing. Once the threshold is crossed, the shopper picks a color and the item is added at €0\. The test hasn't run yet, and we don't know what it will deliver. --- ## The rule Set the gift threshold the way you'd set [the free shipping one](https://conversion.club/playbook/what-should-your-free-shipping-threshold-be/), just above your most common cart. As for the gift, it should relate to what you sell without being part of it. The reason lies in a 2004 study by Priya Raghubir published in the *Journal of Consumer Psychology*. A free product signals its own value: in one of her experiments, a branded pen offered with a cheap liquor lowered the price participants were willing to pay for the pen afterward. Giving away your flagship product amounts to teaching your customers that it isn't worth much. The right gift is a [format you don't sell on its own](https://conversion.club/playbook/how-do-you-build-a-bundle-that-raises-order-value-without-cutting-your-margin/), such as a miniature, an edition outside your catalog or a sample. A perfume house the authors work with slips into every order a sample of the fragrance purchased, so people can smell it before opening the box set. It helps people discover the scent, and we think it also spares a few returns of boxes that have already been opened. --- ## The steps 1. The gift. Choose an item that's useful alongside your products, in a format missing from your catalog. 2. The threshold. Set it from the [distribution of your carts](https://conversion.club/playbook/how-do-you-raise-average-order-value-without-hurting-conversion/), by finding the range where orders cluster. 3. The display. Show the gift in the cart before it's earned, with the amount remaining. On Shopify, a "Buy X, get Y" discount accepts a minimum purchase amount, but the free item is never added on its own: the shopper has to put it in their cart. Automatic adding and removing requires an app or custom development. For the perfume house's sample logic, we had estimated between ten and fifteen hours of work. 4. The duration. The promotion has an end date, announced at launch. 5. The stock. Plan the quantity, and what you'll offer once it runs out. 6. The line for leadership: > "The gifts cost us this much per order. Against the same period without a gift, the cart rose by this much and the number of orders moved by this much, and [it's the margin per order that tells you whether the promotion pays off](https://conversion.club/playbook/what-does-a-promotion-really-earn-you-margin-included/)." --- ## The pitfall The most common is the permanent gift. In our view, after a few months it blends into the price and no longer triggers anything, since regular customers take it for granted. There's also [the matter of returns](https://conversion.club/playbook/how-much-does-a-return-really-cost/). If someone sends back part of their order and drops below the threshold, do you take the gift back? For the clothing brand, we haven't decided yet, and the question of how to handle returns on these orders is still waiting for an answer in our working document. Write the rule before launch, or customer service will improvise a different answer every time. #### Sources - [Free Gift with Purchase: Promoting or Discounting the Brand?, Priya Raghubir, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2004](https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327663jcp1401&2%5F20?ref=conversion.club) - [Buy X get Y discounts (Shopify Help Center)](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/discounts/discount-types/buy-x-get-y?ref=conversion.club)