House Party. Get free stuff by throwing a party and collecting research data.

A unique way to get free stuff may be a simple matter of throwing a house party.

In general terms, two ways to get free stuff are to offer marketing services in exchange for free stuff, or participate in market research to get free stuff. Usually it’s important to understand the motivation behind the freebies offered, because in these two cases the companies offering the freebies want completely opposite services. In former case, the company offering the freebie wants you to promote it as much as possible. In the latter case, when performing market research, they usually want you to keep the results quiet since they’re still beta testing the product. They want to perfect the product before it goes to market. In fact, if you post anything on social media or even tell your family about it, they could potentially kick you out of the testing program. See also Commercial Freebies, Blogging For Freebies, Mystery Shopping and Product Testing for more info.

A house party seems to merge the two opportunities into one. The company wants you to throw a house party to promote the product to friends and family, and at the same you all become a group for product testing. They not only send freebies to you as an individual; they will send enough for you to have a party, so that everyone who attends gets free stuff. In exchange they want information from the group which helps improve the products and you can generally post as much as you want on social media. However, each house party will come with it’s own set of rules which you must follow if you wish to do it more than once.

Actually Free has not yet tested this freebie strategy, but HouseParty has been covered by The New York Times, Martha Stewart, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

How To Get Free Stuff By Throwing a House Party

Here’s how it works:

1. Register with HouseParty.fun to see a list of their available parties and select one.
2. Schedule a party and invite your friends and family.
3. The company sponsoring the party will send you gifts and free samples in a party pack to try at your party.
4. Throw your party on the date indicated by the sponsor. Other party hosts will be throwing the same party on the same day all over the US.
5. You and your friends provide feedback.

 

Not everyone who registers gets selected to throw a house party. The application will give them certain demographic information which they will use in the selection process. Like any product testing gig, those who are conducting the test will want to match the product as close as possible to the product’s target market. If the party sponsor is Huggies, then they’ll select a group of mothers who currently have children in diapers. If the sponsor is Dr. Pepper with a football theme, then they’ll select a group of mostly guys or couples that watch football. And so on according to the product’s target market.

There is no way to verify this since they keep the selection process private. However, it’s reasonable to assume that selecting you is more likely if you fill out the application with as much information as possible and if you have access to friends with a broad range of interests and demographics.

What Can I Get For Free By Throwing A House Party?

The sponsors for their parties are always changing. When this article was first written, the site was reviewed by Actually Free on 7/29/11, and they were featuring parties sponsored by PlayStation, Thai Kitchen, Norton Antivirus, AARP, Kraft Foods, Spin Master Games, and Johnsonville Italian Saugage Pizza.

When the site was reviewed again on 9/6/17, they were featuring parties sponsored by Fancy Feast Creamy Delights, Boar’s Head Fine Crafted Foods, Eight O’Clock Coffee Breakfast, Jimmy Patterson Books featuring Jacky Ha-Ha Book Club, Vaseline Cocoa Radiant Spa, and Dr. Pepper.

They display many of their past parties on their site (click the “past parties” tab). They also display upcoming parties on their home page. Their four categories are “Food & Beverage”, “TV, Movies, Music”, “Kids”, and “Beer, Wine, Liquor”.