Getting free stuff for product review sites?

I am about to launch a product review area for one of my sites. I would really like to get the products for free from the manufacturers or vendors in return for some sort of sponsorship. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I would like to hear from any owners of product review sites.

Thanks in advance

 

I don't have any specifici product review sites, but i've done product reviews. Mostly people have contacted my about this and sent a book or something to review.

You could probably contact vendors. It would take a lot of time, but if you have decent traffic they'll probably want a review for free product exchange.

Also you can try out pay per post if you're a blogger. You may not get any free products but you'll get some cash to buy those products. Also if you site is a blog and has decent PR, alexa, and backlinks, you can sign up for review me.

Hope that helps.

 

It's much easier than you'd think... especially if you already have decent stats on the rest of your site to prove your niche audience reach.

You can contact companies directly with a professional letter / email. You can send a press release announcing the new section and linking to a page telling them where they can send review copies. You can simply post about it in your FAQ, media contact page, etc. Your response will depend on your audience and on the products you're trying to get (getting books is very easy... getting electronics unless you're a major and recognized site is harder).

 

I'm friends with multiple editors/owners of popular tech review magazines/websites and they told me that if you have any good reputation/user base companies will be willing to send you products to review if you just contact them. Some want them returned, allot don't.

To get started, try outsourcing some writers and have them/you write reviews of things you already own. Once you have a good mass of readers and QUALITY articles, companies will be more than happy to send you products to review.

 

gamerfreak has a good point. Before you solicit products, it's a good idea to have some reviews already up. If they like your style, they'll be more likely to send things to you. So review things you own, borrow, rent, or can test in-store first.

 

Wonderful stuff guys thanks. My site is sports related and most of the manufacturers of the goods I want to review are in Asia. Guess I have some emailing to do.

thx