Buy one, get one free

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"Buy one, get one free" is a common form of sales promotion. While rarely presented to customers in acronym form, this marketing technique is universally known in the marketing industry by the acronym BOGO, and it is regarded as one of the most effective forms of special offers for goods^{[citation needed]}.

Originally, "buy one get one free" was a sudden end-of-season or stock clearance method used by shops who were left with a large quantity of stock that they were looking to sell quickly. More recently it has become a popular, planned and considered marketing method.

In the early 1980s, "buy one get one free" was a popular marketing tool employed by record companies to sell compilation albums^{[citation needed]}. These were double albums, but unattached as two stand-alone albums, but neither could be purchased separately. By the mid 1980s the novelty had largely worn off with the rise of the more usual double-album packages of Now That's What I Call Music.

One article^[1] has argued that the success of this promotion lies in the fact that the price actually takes into account the fact that two items are being sold. The price of "one" is somewhat nominal and is typically raised when used as part of a buy one get one free deal. Whilst the cost per item is proportionately cheaper than if bought on its own, it is not actually half price.

Buy one get one free is a popular sales technique because it can be used legally at any time, unlike many other offers. For example a shop cannot claim an item is "on sale" or is discounted unless it has been available for sale at the previous, higher price for a certain period of time.

[edit] References

1. ^ Buy one get one free, from Marginal Revolution; accessed 5 January, 2008.