Hello Everyone,
So I have a freebie on my store that I am offering where I create free print on demand businesses for individuals. I am getting views, but I was wondering if any of you all offered a freebie. Did it work? How did you promote it?
Topic summary
An online store owner is offering a free service—building print‑on‑demand businesses for individuals—seeing traffic and asking whether freebies work and how to promote them.
A respondent reports positive results when freebies are relevant to a defined niche and used to incentivize orders or grow a customer list. Strongest outcomes came from aligning a giveaway with a store launch date to build anticipation and urgency.
Practical tactics suggested:
- Limit the offer (e.g., free product for the first 10 customers) to prompt quick action.
- Decide whether the freebie is a bonus added to an order or a no‑strings giveaway.
- Build a niche‑focused Instagram audience first, then launch and promote the freebie to that audience.
- Leverage resulting customer reviews and photos as marketing assets.
Status: Ongoing. A clarifying question remains on whether the free item is the free business setup itself or a separate product.
Hi @wearsthedesigns , thanks for reaching out to the Shopify Community.
I have run a couple giveaways and freebies for my websites in the past, and have a giveaway coming up soon. I’ve found that freebies can be a great incentive for customers to place orders in your store, or even to build a customer list. The type of product you’re offering is very important because even if it’s free, your audience still has to care about the product and want it. I would try to tailor the product to a specific niche and use different marketing strategies to bring the customers that are interested in that niche.
The most success I’ve had from freebies is when I planned it around my store launch. Having a specific day builds more interest over a period of time with potential customers. I had a store launch and offered a free product to the first 10 customers to place an order. You can decide to add the free gift as a bonus item in the order, or just offer the first X amount of people the free gift with no strings attached. I’ve always worked backwards when it comes to creating a brand. I usually build a brand Instagram account, build my followers by posting content that fits the niche I’m working in, and then launch my store. I’ve found it to be really great to bring in customers this way.
Another benefit to offering the free item is having more customer reviews and customer photos that you can take and then use in your marketing.
Is the free item you’re offering the free business you’re creating? Or is it a different product?