Free Samples Work, Now and Later.

Product samples work, according to a study by the research firm Arbitron. More than a third of the people who accept a sample in a store or a mall go on to buy the product that day, the study found. And 58 percent who sampled products said they would buy them in the future. ''It's universally thought that product sampling is effective for same-day sales, but the long-term effects were surprising to me,'' said Olga Jourova, the study's author. The study was based on 1,857 telephone interviews with a nationally representative panel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]