How is this value justified?

[crampyi]

I had an email from Cult Beauty advertising a gift with purchase ie you spend around £200, you get a free goody bag that is valued at £290. I looked at what is included - most seem like mini sizes of products, the only definite full size is a bog standard disposable face mask. It’s full of cheap to mid range brands. I’m a bit confused at how they reach the £290 value, especially as many of the travel sized products aren’t sold separately at that size.

so how do companies get to this value for goody bags? Or can they put whatever value they want on it?

They extrapolate the value of the mini as a percentage of the full size product, so if 100ml costs £75, say, the 20ml 'travel size' will be counted as a theoretical £15, even though you can't actually buy it.

Beauty counters used to give away handfuls of sample sizes for free, but somehow we've all been conned into paying for them in the form of advent calendars and beauty boxes...

Unless they're complete idiots, they'll have worked it out like @ASaltyWoman says. Based on 'RRP' which often is far higher than the amount the items are generally sold for if you shop around.

Obviously it's up to you to decide whether it's worth spending £200 on whatever Cult Beauty sell to get '£290 worth' of random stuff free, half of which you might not even want.

Having said that, I bought a hair dryer from there which was just over £100 and it wasn't the most expensive one they sell so if you're buying something like that it's probably worth buying a few extra bits to qualify for the free goody bag.

I've also had the M&S beauty boxes that are either free or a reasonably token sum compared with the claimed value,eg £25 for £150 worth of items and I've often been able to ebay the items I've not wanted for enough to cover the cost of the box and try a few new things for free.

If they actually sell the items separately they just and up the rrp. If they don’t actually sell the free items they have to declare ‘estimated’ value of the good bag.

Either way, it highlights that Beauty is one of the most high margin consumer goods categories in the world, potentially very profitable if you are involved in the industry or have invested. The skys the limit in terms of what mainly women will pay if they think they can be more beautiful.