Buy One, Get One Free Debunked: Who Pays for the Free One?

Buy one, get one free sounds like the store is handing you a gift, but the second item has been tucked inside the price of the first one for over a century, and the Supreme Court said so in 1965. Emily Rask follows the word free from Coca-Cola’s first coupon and a paint company’s day in court to the SNL sketch that roasted Jos. A. Bank’s buy one, get three free suits, JCPenney’s failed attempt to take sales away from shoppers, and the MyPillow deal that never ended.

Along the way she looks at the chocolate study that shows why free hits our brains harder than any discount, and she shares the pillow department where a dollar deal cost shoppers more than the Wednesday sale.

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