Shipper samples/freebies?

Used to delivery groceries, a pedal run to small town stores and restaurants. One store would always give me a sandwich and a juice box after I was done. Another restaurant was on the second floor. I always went there at lunch time. I would bring up the first armful of goods, put in my lunch order and go get the rest of his stuff. Lunch was ready by then and he always gave me a 50% discount.

 

One guy I delivered to would give drivers $100 to $150. One time I had to wait overnight when picking up some stuff for him land he gave me $350 for that. It was supposed to be ready when I got there.

Boss was complaining that he did not get any more money for the wait so I just kept my mouth shut.

 

I delivered a load of seconds shingles once and was asking the owner and a contractor how many squares I need and how much it would cost for my chicken coop. Turned out to be 2 or 3 squares. Well when it came time to talk price I was told my money was no good and the owner had one of his guy gather up the right amount of loose shingles (package was broken /missing ) and put them on my truck.

 

Freebies, 99% of the time it's damaged stuff. But, years ago we used to get container loads of Fiji water for Costco stores. These were store direct, usually 22 pallets per container. Problem, each store only got 10 pallets. We'd take the extra pallets to the yard and unload them. Office would call broker, week later broker would tell them to dispose of it.....and we got free water. Same with Oxygenated water back in the day. Lately it's cases of organic popcorn at King Soopers, they toss the damaged back on the trailer, we bring it to the yard, one time we had most of a pallet that got handed out to drivers. One of our regular customers is a popcorn facility, they ship bulk bags of kernals to Japan, China, S.E. Asia and points therein. They always have popped popcorn for us to grab a handful. One time I jokingly asked for a small bag for the trip to Denver. They handed me a clear plastic bag (size of a lawn/leaf bag) full of popcorn, on the 4 hour drive home I ate so much popcorn, I couldn't stand the smell or sight of it for a year. Used to do Kraft Foods, nightly trailer loads of cookies and crackers shipped from Chicago to Denver via rail. They had a rack of damaged packages, I asked for something, next day, there was 12 packages of Oreo's with a nice note, on the back of a trailer. I snacked on Oreo's for 8 hrs (I gave the office 10 of the packages), now the sight of Oreo's makes me gag.

When I first started driving, I worked for 7UP, we got a 6-pack every day, I would drink a couple and bring the rest home, think at one point we had 5 or 6 cases worth. Also worked for a McD's distributor, any store we delivered to gave us free food.

One of our long time customers is Golight, we used to help unload the trailer. The owner would give us a $50 each time. Once, I had the cash to buy a light from them ($300 ea), when I asked about it, he simply handed me one and said have a nice day. About a year later I got another one from them. When they were designing these little LED flashlights, when LED's were brand new to the market, they gave me a dozen to give out to my coworkers, still have it.

Years back, one of our customers was a magazine distributor, we would pick up bales of shredded magazines going to recycling. The girls in the warehouse would inspect the magazines, anything out of date would be sent to the shredder. The loader told me I could have what I wanted, one trip I brought home about 60 magazines, close to $500, I had so many porn magazines, I could have opened my own adult book store.

Hats, probably collected a dozen or more from various places.

Ralston Purina gave me 3 packages of puperonis and 3 of beggin' strips for my dog, she was very happy.

 

Years ago the cig makers over in Richmond, VA often had packs & cartons to give away. Eagle Snacks always had bags of snacks to give away. Unfortunately the car maker I deal with hardly ever hands out new cars, or maybe they only do that for day drivers.

 

What's the -20 on treating drivers like humans?? I may have to wake up Leroy!

 

Theres a bakery in jersey that makes the cookies for walmart. Case of cookies every time I load there. Just got to remember to buy milk.

 

When I worked at Home Depot, I pretty regularly received and was forced to turn down, many gifts. It was considered unethical per company policy. Conflict of interest something something. In my mind, it made it easier for me to sell the product if I first used it myself. But also they would give me concert tickets and tickets to cowboys games... Screw the cowgirls though. Chiefs baby!

 

Frozen pies.

 

Lots of free stuff. Hershey's plants usually always hand out some candy. Sunny D somewhere near Dallas gave me a case. A bakery in upstate new York gave me some danishes. I've got weird odds and ends at other places. Plus all the OSD that I get. And for being thier first 53 ft trailer to go to a little winery in Napa Valley, they mailed me a case of thier wine and gave me a tour for free "50-60$ a bottle." They were disappointed I couldn't partake there. A butcher shop I delivered to in Ogden "Bonneville meats" made me a sandwich after I helped walk the owner through the OSD process with JBS.

And so on.....