At first glance, all looks as it should be in the Sample Lab, a bright, airy store in the heart of Tokyo's trendiest shopping district: products on one side, eager customers on the other and, in between, the polite, immaculately turned-out staff.
But notice the odd details. For a start, most of the products lined up on the shelves have no price tags, and there are no cash registers or store detectives. Then there are the shoppers, who line up quietly in numbered lines before dashing for the shelves like greyhounds from a trap. Rather than assist, the staff get out of the way. Oddest of all, those customers walk home with their booty absolutely free.
A shop that gives everything away doesn't sound lucrative, but Sample Lab is a major success story, claims Melposnet, the company that runs it. 'We're delighted at the reaction,' says spokeswoman Erika Awata, who proudly boasts that more than 40,000 people have come here to grab everything from sake to socks since the shop opened in the Harajuku district four months ago.
What's the catch? Melposnet is a marketing agency that set up Sample Lab to get feedback and generate interest in new products for its clients. The Lab is membership only and customers can be asked to fill out questionnaires on what they have taken, which are then sent to the companies that have donated the freebies. Some have dubbed this system 'tryvertising'.
Consumer trends company trendwatching.com, which claims to have coined that awkward term, says behind the new approach lies a dramatic loss of consumer faith in traditional advertising. 'So introducing yourself and your products by letting people experience and try them out first, is a very civilised and effective way to show some respect,' explains the firm's website.
Sample Lab's visitors - more than 80 per cent of them young women - seem happy to take part in the experiment. 'Most of the stuff don't even have a questionnaire attached,' says Yoko Hashitate, laughing. A university student on her fifth visit to the shop, she's got a basket containing bottled water, canned coffee and bath salts. 'You don't have to pay for anything. At first, I didn't understand the system and thought it was a trick.'