"Not missing the point at all. Again, I've been here a long time, so trust me when I tell you I've seen countless disconnects between the merchants and management here. This one doesnt surprise me at all, so I have no problem with five bucks."

Let show you my side of it. Pretend for a moment we are in the real world. My partner and I spent about 5 very long days working on the freebies for this promotion. Day off we show up with our goodies and someone puts us and 40 other people in a fairly small room together. The doors open! The crowed swarms in! People run amok! Ok, mostly they grab what they see and go to the check out. Its tight in there, reaaaaly tight. There is a que out the door a mile long. A couple of hundred people take what is at its very core a free advertisement as much as gift. But better than a bad pen it can actually be used! About 7 pm after a long and exciting day we hear a rumble. It grows and then we hear we that from now on when we give someone something we need to say "Please take my free (advertising)  product and when you get to the line you will need to buy $5 worth of something in order to accept it". We look at the now much shorter line. We listen to a couple of people at the counter get peved because items are removed from their hands as they are standing there. We see the looks on their faces when they suddenly find out our freebies are not free as such.  Then we pack up our toys and go stand out side to give them away.

Your right in many respects. Being able to get so many things for $5 isn't much.  Most of us would be more than happy to pay $5 to get into the barganata of little trinkets and carry away as much as we could haul out with us. Especially since you actually get something in return for that $5 not just in the venue door. But how it was done and when it was done was unfair to people. And more over I spent my time and my energy to make products. I wanted those in as many happy hands as wanted to take them. We are end of day a business. I admit that in part the reason we do free things is to draw customers. It's not the only reason of course. It is important that we are making someones day by giving them something. These are a perfect example. I included some velvets in them because I knew someone was itching to have them.

Doing freebies for vendors is generally a win/win. We get to give to people and at the same time we get a little bit of advertising good will. Having people pay a surcharge out of the blue first cuts down the number of people who get the free advertising and second took the fun out of giving someone a gift. That is a lose/lose. Not only were my hours of work going to turn someone else a profit my warm fuzzy feeling got stolen!

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