Elann.com Swatching Membership

Just signed up for the 1 year of Elann sample yarns and color snips with their newsletters and got my first month - I love this, but does anyone else think they have the better end of the deal here? Um, if I look at all the colors and swatch every one of the yarns coming out on sale in August, odds are there's going to be one I'm going to like and order. Yeah, you pay $52.50 USD for it, and they give you vouchers totaling that amount for $2.50 off each $25 spent, but this is a slick marketing move for sure on their part as they are pretty much assured that they will get an order of some sort every month from me (and I'd bet most of their subscribers to this) now.

This month's Exhibit A? Lang Viva - the gauge swatch shown in the picture (which, why did they send me in black of all colors - not so good for seeing stitch definition or blogging.) I'm trying to decide which of the metallic colors to buy it in - I like it in the silver and the pewter colors (both of which I have small snips of) and liked working up the swatch and also liked the free pattern they're going to be offering with it (newsletter is folded to show it in my picture.)

I look at this membership almost as insurance against buying yarns from Elann that end up not working out - I am picky about the yarns I work with and usually buy only one ball first to swatch to decide if I want to "marry it" and make the commitment to buy enough yarn for the whole project. With Elann, I buy a TON of individual skeins to swatch (yeah, I know, I need to sign up for the One Skein knitalong) but don't always get around to swatching them or buying more yarn for a project. This way I don't buy any individual skeins, but they get me to buy all of the yarn at once for a project, as I already know I like it.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I like the membership, but I'm admiring the shrewdness of their marketing.