The Nutribullet - Free Shipping (TNA Technique)

This online advert is trying to sell the public, the Nutribullet, an extractor, which breaks down and pulverizes anything placed into the machine, though in a different way than juicers and blenders do. Importantly, the advert also says that when you buy the Nutribullet, you get ‘Free Shipping’ along with it. This is made very clear, right next to the price in an obvious red circle. Therefore, when offering the Nutribullet to the world, rather than to give it to them as a final item, they offer them something extra, which is the That’s-Not-All Technique (TNA). The item is requested at a certain price, which makes the individual ponder the offer but what sweetens the deal is the fact that there the form of an added benefit (here, free shipping). If the technique works, people are more likely to comply with the request than if they had been presented with the improved offer at the outset. This is a very good technique, and works especially with online shopping, where a person may have been wanting to buy the Nutribullet for a long time, but will feel more compelled to buy it, now that there is a “Free Shipping” element added to it, which may not have been there before. The customers will have been offered an initial less attractive request (when they had to pay for shipping), followed by a more attractive second request (when they were presented with free shipping), invoking a norm of reciprocity and contrast.

Burger (1986) found this technique works well, because the customer sees the salesperson as entering into negotiation by offering an additional product. With each additional increment, the customer feels an increasing obligation to purchase the product, in return for the salesperson’s concessions. He conducted 7 experiments with 426 adolescents, undergraduates and adults to examine the effectiveness of the that's-not-all technique as a compliance procedure. In one of these 7, participants were sold a cupcake with two cookies for 75 cents (control) or stated the cupcake was 75 cents and then added two cookies ‘for free’ (TNA condition). The TNA condition was that people were interrupted after having been said that each cupcake was 75 cents, and the salesperson said "wait a second," leaving the customer to think about deciding whether or not to buy a cupcake at that price. A few seconds later, they explained the bag also included two cookies. The control sold 40% of its sales, but the experimental sold 73%. Therefore, the TNA technique is an effective procedure for increasing sales, where the participants presented with the that's-not-all manipulation were significantly more likely to purchase the cupcake with the two cookies at 75 cents through this procedure rather than the control group who bought the complete cupcake-and-cookie package for 75 together. He found this effect of TNA being successful in all his 7 experiments. This was partly explained by people in the TNA condition partly responding to the perceived concession on the part of the sales person who was seen as "giving in" a little and doing a favour for the customer. Importantly, according to the norm of reciprocity, people operate under a social rule that requires people to return favours. People thus perceive the TNA condition as involving the salesperson doing them a favour and may feel an increased obligation to do something for that person, and thus buy the product. 

Therefore, providing free shipping is a way to increase consumer’s likelihood of buying goods and services. Dan Ariely, a behavioural economic has argued that free shipping is not just another discount where he found in an experiment, people are between four and five times as likely to spend $5 for an item if either the shipping or the item is free, as they are to pay $2.50 for the same product plus $2.50 for shipping. In his book, Predictably Irrational (2008), Dan Ariely shows that when he launched a “free shipping” promotion with the purchase of a second book, every country apart from France, showed a big jump in sales from the offer. This was later found to be because the offer in France charged one franc, or 20 cents, which despite not being much different to being free, the one franc offer for shipping caused no sales’ increase. When the offer later became free, the sales did indeed jump. He argues, having something free is more powerful than any rational economic analysis would suggest. This is a perfect example of the TNA technique, and so is the Nutribullet ad above, which can largely increase sales volume.

Burger, J.M. (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that’s not all technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 277-283.

Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably Irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York: Harper Perennial.