A sample policy is the written rule for who gets your product without paying full price for it, what it costs them, and what you expect back. Writing it down before the requests start is the difference between samples being a sales tool and samples being a slow leak in your inventory.
The instinct for a new brand is to say yes to everything. A shop asked, they might order, the unit cost is only a few dollars. Then six months later you have sent forty samples, three have turned into accounts, and you have spent more on postage than you made on your last two orders. The fix is not to become stingy. It is to make the sample cost something, feel deliberate, and come with a next step attached.
Charge for samples, and credit them back
The single best policy for a small brand: samples are sold at wholesale price with shipping, and the full amount is credited against the buyer's first order.
This works because it costs a serious buyer nothing and costs a tyre-kicker something. A shop that intends to stock you is happy to pay twenty-eight dollars now knowing it comes off an opening order of four hundred. A consumer hoping for a cheap candle, or a buyer who was being polite, quietly declines.
It also changes the conversation. A paid sample is a transaction, which means it has an invoice, a date and a natural follow-up: did the sample arrive, what did you think, shall we credit it against an order. A free sample has none of that, which is why free samples so often end in silence.
Put an expiry on the credit — ninety days is normal and generous — so the offer has an edge to it. The mechanics of that first order are in opening order.
When to send something at no charge
There are three situations where paying is the wrong ask, and they are all cases where you initiated the contact.
A buyer you approached cold, who has replied with interest. You started this. Asking them to pay to evaluate a brand they had not heard of last week is friction in the wrong place. Send one unit, not the range.
A shop that already stocks you and is considering a new variant. They have proven they pay. One unit of the new thing is a marketing cost, not a sample.
A buyer in front of you at a show or a meeting. Handing something over in person converts far better than posting it later, and the cost is trivial next to what you already spent to be in the room. The rest of that conversation is in buyer meeting tips.
Everything else — inbound requests, applications not yet approved, anyone you cannot verify as a retailer — goes through the paid route.
What a sample should actually contain
A sample is not one unit in a padded bag. Treated properly it is the smallest possible version of the shelf you want.
Send the hero, not the range. A buyer who receives one excellent thing forms a clear opinion. A buyer who receives six things forms none and has to think, and thinking is where deals stall. If the range genuinely needs context, send two.
Send it retail-ready. Full packaging, correct labelling, barcode if you have one. The buyer is evaluating whether this survives on a shelf next to brands with real packaging, and a naked unit in tissue paper answers that question badly.
Include the commercial detail in the box. A one-page line sheet with wholesale price, retail price, case size, minimum and lead time. The buyer is holding the product; this is the moment they want the numbers. What belongs on that sheet is in wholesale line sheet.
Include a short handwritten note. Two lines, their name, one specific thing about their shop. This is the highest-return thirty seconds in wholesale and almost nobody does it.
| Situation | Charge | What to send |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound request, unverified | Wholesale plus shipping | One hero unit |
| You approached them | Nothing | One hero unit |
| Existing stockist, new line | Nothing | The new variant |
Sample kits for shops that want the range
Once you have more than a handful of products, a fixed kit beats an open-ended request.
A kit is a defined set — three or four units, one of each core variant — sold at a flat price with shipping included, credited against a first order. Because it is a product with a price, it can sit on your wholesale page as a thing to buy rather than a favour to ask for, and that alone reduces the number of vague sample emails you answer.
Price it so it roughly covers your cost and postage. You are not trying to make money on kits. You are trying to make them feel like a purchase.
Keep kit contents fixed. The moment buyers can choose, you are back to picking and packing bespoke sample orders, which is the exact work you were trying to avoid. Present the kit on your wholesale page with a price and a photograph, exactly as you would a product.
The follow-up is the policy
A sample with no follow-up is a donation. Decide the sequence once and run it every time.
Day of dispatch: a short email with tracking and one sentence about what to look for. Day five or six, after it has landed: one question, not a pitch. "Did the cedar arrive in good shape — is it the kind of thing your customers go for." Two to three weeks later: the last touch, referencing the credit and the expiry, with a direct ask for the opening order.
Three contacts, then stop and move the account to your general list. Chasing a sample for four months damages the relationship more than the lost order costs you. The tone that works across all three is the same one that works in cold contact, and the patterns are in wholesale outreach email.
Record what happened. Sample sent, date, charged or not, replied or not, ordered or not. After thirty samples that record tells you your real conversion rate and whether the policy needs tightening.
Limits worth writing down
A short, stated set of rules saves every awkward conversation in advance.
One sample order per shop before a first purchase. If a buyer needs a second round to decide, the answer is a conversation, not more product.
Samples are for retailers, and you verify before sending. A quick check of the shop's site and address is enough, and it is the same check you do on a wholesale application anyway.
You cover shipping only on kits or on accounts you approached. Postage is a real cost and it is the part of a sample programme that scales badly.
Samples are not returnable and are not for resale. Say it once, gently, in your terms. Where that clause sits alongside the rest of your trading rules is covered in wholesale policy.
When samples are not the bottleneck
Some brands solve the sample question perfectly and still get nowhere, because the problem was never the sample. It was that too few of the right shops knew the brand existed.
If your sample conversion is decent — one in three or better turning into an order — the policy is working and the fix is volume: more of the right buyers seeing the product. If it is far worse than that, the problem is fit, and sending more units into the same kind of shop will not change it.
To work out which of the two you have, look at what kinds of shops actually stock products like yours. Paste your product link into WholesalePilot and look at the preview of retailers and distributors in your category, then compare that list with the shops you have been sending samples to. The mismatch, where there is one, is usually the whole answer.
Questions brands ask about wholesale samples
Should the sample be free if the buyer asks nicely? Charge, then credit. It is not about the money, it is about whether the request is serious, and serious buyers never object.
What if a sample request comes from a consumer? Reply with your retail store link and a friendly note. It happens constantly and it is not a problem, just a mismatch.
Do samples count as part of the minimum order? No. Credit the value against the order, but the order still has to clear the minimum on its own.
How many samples should a new brand budget for? Think of it as a fixed monthly number rather than an open tap — a handful a month is plenty while you are still proving which shop type converts. Supporting the accounts that result is covered in retailer support.