By Jessica Lim

SOME companies looking to test new products are trying a new route. Instead of hiring students to hand them out in shopping centres, they are doing it through the Internet.

Contact with those who want the samples first takes place online. The freebies are sent through the mail.

This marketing tactic, popular in Taiwan and Japan, is gaining traction here.

Here's how it works: Members register for an account online, choose the samples from a gallery and pay a fee of between 80 cents and $4 for the items to be delivered by snail mail.

After using the products, members earn points by writing reviews on them, which qualifies them for more samples.

The products range from rice crackers and potato chips to air fresheners and face creams. They sometimes come packaged in retail sizes.

Traffic has been picking up.

Year-old website fr3b.com now has 30,000 members, up from 4,000 at its start. Its gallery has gone from offering seven brands to more than 100.

Another website, zample.com.sg, all of three months old, said response has been overwhelming, and that it has had to scramble to get more samples from a wider variety of sources.

Companies say there are some advantages to using the websites.

Said Mr Marcus Ang, 29, the business development manager of Alphico Marketing, which distributes Banana Boat's range of sun-protection products and San Remo pastas: 'It's hard to hit the right people when you randomly hand out samples.'

Going online means less wastage and reaching customers who are actually interested, he added.

Ms Emiline Lee, 40, a retail lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, noted that as much as 80 per cent of samples handed out on the street end up in a bin - those hired to do so give them out to all and sundry, and most people are just not interested.

Ms Lee added that she is not surprised such websites are taking off, because some Singaporeans 'will do anything for free stuff'.

But that could be a problem if the websites are just attracting freeloaders. If this is the case, she said, then handing out the samples may do little for the companies.

Other companies say another plus of handing out samples via the Web is the feedback they get.

Mentholatum, which owns acne-treatment brand Oxy and anti-dandruff shampoo range Selsun, said the reviews from people who get its samples enable it to fine-tune products.

Free-sample users, meanwhile, say one reason they sign up for such services is to save money.

Take Jacqualine Chan, 24.

She was unsure about how her skin would take to a new brand of face cream and was unwilling to spend money on a whole tub of it, so she requested a sample to try.

If she likes a product, she said, she would buy it.

'It's good because I am not bombarded with stuff I am not interested in,' she said.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.