Features

It's not unusual for companies to try to attract customers by offering some sort of free gift. The chance of luring buyers away from rivals is more than sufficient motivation to give stuff away.

And giving stuff away isn't always as expensive as you might think. Thanks to mass production, a lot of goods, particularly at the low end of the high-tech market, don't cost very much at all at the factory gate, yet they have a high perceived value to customers. Despite making a small loss on each item, the company will calculate that the extra revenue ultimately generated by gaining new customers will more than cover the initial outlay.

Products given away free are sometimes ones that have reached the end of their shelf life or have been superseded by a newer model. As we discovered in our recent feature on discount computers (click Features at www.computerbuyer.co.uk), there are lots of reasons why perfectly good kit doesn't end up being sold in the normal way at the normal price, and selling off goods in bulk to companies who want something to give away is one easy way to dispose of them. When more up-to-date products are given away, it's often the result of a marketing agreement or 'contra' deal between the company offering the free gift and the firm producing the item. Advertising campaigns are incredibly expensive, and giving away a few thousand products can generate valuable publicity at a lower cost. Such deals work well for both parties: the manufacturer benefits from cheap advertising (as well as new customers who may well buy more goods in the future or make recommendations to friends and family) and the company running the special offer hopes to get additional custom.

There are, of course, free gifts that are offered without the need to buy something else, or to sign up to a service, and these generally work in favour of the company running the special offer in one of two ways. It may be that the product or service being offered will require additional services that will lead to future purchases; we're all familiar with this from the way mobile phones come free with a contract and games consoles are sold for less than the cost of the hardware. Or the free gift may, again, simply function as a form of advertising that will pay for itself by generating custom.

It almost goes without saying that free gifts offered with a service shouldn't be your sole reason for making a purchase. Signing a contract just to receive a free gift is almost certain to be a false economy unless you were planning to use the service, or a similar one, in any event. But when comparing two similar services from different companies, there's no reason why special offers shouldn't help to sway your decision.

Below we've listed some of the current offers that are available, bearing in mind that some or all of these may have disappeared again by the time you read this, and new ones will appear on a daily basis.

To keep up to date with the latest offers, there are several websites worth checking out. Take a look at the likes of Freebiers Club UK (www.freebiersclub.co.uk) and the forums at Money Saving Expert (www.moneysavingexpert.com) for tip-offs, and check around technology resellers such as The Link (www.thelink.co.uk), which often run promotions of one sort or another. As with normal purchases, it pays to shop around.

What's the catch?

Before signing up for any service that offers a free gift, check the details. The free gift will often only be yours when you sign up for a certain length of time.You probably won't be able to get out of the contract later, even if you return the gift, so be sure you know exactly what's involved. In some cases the price of a service over a period is simply hiked to cover the cost of the 'free' gift, giving you no benefit at all. Shop around to find the going rate for the service.

1 Business cards Printed office stationery is now cheap to buy, and even cheaper if you take advantage of free offers such as the current promotion at VistaPrint (www.vistaprint.co.uk). You can get 250 business cards, personalised sticky note blocks and a custom rubber stamp for just the price of postage. These items are based on standard templates with a limited amount of customisation, but that may be fine for many purposes, especially if you don't have time or money to spend on design. As with photos, there are lots of competing services - you could try www.everydayprint.co.uk, www.goodprint.co.uk, www.shortrunprint.org or www.printingdirect.com - and don't forget your local printer. Shop for the best price, but also consider service and support, especially if you don't have experience of producing documents for print.

2 Laptops Thinking of switching broadband provider? If a two-year contract doesn't bother you, joining AOL Broadband through The Carphone Warehouse (www.carphonewarehouse.com) will get you a free Dell Inspiron laptop. It's by no means top-of-the-range, but with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive and Vista Home Basic it's very usable, and reckoned to be worth around £450, of which you only pay a £14.99 delivery charge. For an extra £50 you can get a 120GB hard drive and Vista Home Premium, which has the nice onscreen effects and Media Center, while £150 also boosts the laptop to a Core 2 Duo processor. We'd say it really needs 2GB of RAM as well, but that's not an option. AOL Broadband packages start from £20 a month with a free wireless router, and the service is generally well regarded. However, as with any ADSL (telephone line) broadband you won't know exactly what speed your line will deliver until you try it. And two years is a very long time to be tied in if you find AOL's particular combination of features doesn't suit you. Even so, this seems a good deal if you're looking for ADSL. But it's advertised as 'limited', and a similar deal run by PC World disappeared rather fast. It's possible that the publicity generated by announcing such offers might make it worthwhile to run them at a loss, but only for a short period.

3 Broadband Anyone who uses the Internet, except the kind of person who only logs on to check their email every other Friday, needs their connection to be as fast and as cheap as possible. And the promise of free broadband at speeds of up to 8Mbit/sec sounds like a very good combination. Exactly such a promise is currently offered by TalkTalk (www.talktalk.co.uk), part of Carphone Warehouse. (Is anything not part of Carphone Warehouse now?) However, this isn't exactly a free offer. To get 'free' broadband, you have to pay £10.50 a month in line rental as well as £5.89 or £9.99 for one of the Talk2 International phone tariffs. Then there's a £29.99 connection fee, and to take up the offer you have to sign an 18 month contract. Over those 18 months, unless the Buyer office calculator is a big fat liar, your free broadband will cost you a minimum of £325.01. Of course, that might still be well worth considering if the service was good. To find out, we trawled Internet service provider discussion boards such as ISPreview (www.ispreview.co.uk), DSL ZoneUK (www.dslzoneuk.net) and thinkbroadband (www.thinkbroadband.com). We found a lot of people expressing dissatisfaction with TalkTalk, the most common problems being poor support, slow connections (a common complaint about ADSL broadband from all providers, to be fair) and stability problems. In DSL ZoneUK's rankings, TalkTalk manages 28th position, with a customer satisfaction rating of 5.73 out of 10. There are loads of broadband providers to choose from, many with no initial setup charges and some now offering monthly contracts, so you can try the service and switch quickly without penalty if you're not satisfied. Prices vary, and so do performance, so to get a deal that really does balance the two, with transparent charges, you'll have to resort to shopping around - and getting out that credit card.

4 Consumer goods Free iPod! Can it be true? What you're probably looking at is a referral scheme. The basic idea is that you sign up other people to get benefits for yourself. That means it's a type of pyramid scheme, which should ring alarm bells. However, the test of a legitimate pyramid is that there's money coming in from outside, and good referral schemes pass this test. For example, The Giveaway Network (www.giveawaynetwork.co.uk) offers free items in return for referrals. Having created an account, you participate in an online offer (such as joining a DVD rental service or spending £10 betting online) and refer a number of friends to do the same. You might need ten friends to qualify for a freebie, and the offer might cost a minimum of £5 or £10. The catch is that your friends have to take up the offer, at their own expense, so that the website gets a referral fee from the company running the offer, which funds your gift. Essentially, you're getting a small cashback and pinching a proportion of your friends' cashback too. They in turn, of course, can then sign up new friends (not the same ones) to qualify for their own gifts - that's the pyramid element. Getting involved in this kind of scheme could mean you quickly run out of friends - in more ways than one. But if you have enough contacts who are amenable, it could be a way to get one or two good freebies.

5 Photo prints Online photo printing services will output your digital photos at high quality for a few pence each. Many offer a number of free prints when you sign up or place your first order. These offers change constantly, so it's worth checking around. At the time of writing, myPIX (www.mypix.com) offers 25 free prints with no obligation to buy anything. You have to order within a month of joining, and only standard prints are included. We found myPIX's prints excellent, but we didn't like the way unrequested extras were added to our order, which we had to remove manually. Other photo services to look at include www.bonusprint.co.uk, www.foto.com, www.photobox.co.uk and www.snapfish.co.uk. Click Features at www.computerbuyer.co.uk to read our test of print services.