"Buy one, get one free" or "two for the price of one" is a common form of

sales promotion Sales promotion is one of the elements of the promotional mix. The primary elements in the promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and publicity/public relations. Sales promotion uses both media and non-media marketin ...

. Economist

Alex Tabarrok Alexander Taghi Tabarrok (born November 11, 1966) is a Canadian-American economist. With Tyler Cowen, he co-authors the economics blog ''Marginal Revolution''. Tabarrok and Cowen have also ventured into online education with ''Marginal Revoluti ...

has argued that the success of this promotion lies in the fact that consumers value the first unit significantly more than the second one. So compared to a seemingly equivalent "Half price off" promotion, they may only buy one item at half price, because the value they attach to the second unit is lower than even the discounted price. This technique is commonly known in the

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

industry by the acronym BOGOF, or simply BOGO.

Criticism

Two-for-one promotions in the food industry have been criticized as contributing to

food waste Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about o ...

. Because many foods under such offers have short shelf lives, customers are more likely to pass the products'

use by date Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or no longer on a ...

References

{{Reflist Sales promotion