Amazon AMZN continues to adopt aggressive retail strategies in a bid to strengthen footprint in the global online retail market.The company has teamed up with few selected product brands, available on its e-commerce platform, to send free product samples to its customers.With these samples, customers will be able to verify the product before finally purchasing it which will help the company in enhancing shopping experience. This will aid Amazon’s momentum across its massive customer base.Advertisement at PlayThe latest move of Amazon seems to be a traditional retail strategy of advertising a product.In fact, free product samples are ramping up the company’s growing advertisement strategies. Notably, the company is leveraging its vast customer shopping and delivery address data for this purpose.As of now, the company is dropping off sample products which have been purchased several times like consumer staples, dog food, makeup items and toiletries.Notably, the samples are being sent to selected customers currently.The recent strategy of Amazon is similar to targeted ads. Moreover, the company is not likely to stop here. Rather, it is likely to strengthen this strategy and expand the accessibility of free samples to other customers as it is aggressively looking into expansion of its targeted sampling team.Reportedly, the company had posted a job vacancy last year for a senior-level person for the team.However, leveraging customer data might pose serious data privacy challenges to the company.Amazon.com, Inc. Price and Consensus Amazon.com, Inc. Price and Consensus | Amazon.com, Inc. Quote Social Benefits to Aid GrowthThe latest move is not only going to benefit the company but is also likely to bring social benefits.With free product samples, the company will be able to eliminate the rigidity of the traditional shoppers who still hesitate to opt for online shopping fearing product integrity.The move will enable the customers to test, try, smell, taste and feel the product before its final purchase. Further, Amazon has kept the strategy shopper friendly as there is no obligation to purchase product after receiving its sample.Further, the sampling initiative will also help the sellers and brands to improve their sales growth by expanding their customer reach, in turn aiding growth.All these benefits are likely to expand the company’s customer and seller base. This bodes well for Amazon’s online retail business.Zacks Rank and Stocks to ConsiderAmazon currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).Some better-ranked stocks in the retail-wholesale sector are TripAdvisor TRIP, Expedia Group EXPE and Booking Holdings BKNG. All the three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.Long-term earnings growth for TripAdvisor, Expedia Group and Booking Holdings is pegged at 14.05%, 16.42% and 13.54%, respectively.Today's Stocks from Zacks' Hottest StrategiesIt's hard to believe, even for us at Zacks. But while the market gained +21.9% in 2017, our top stock-picking screens have returned +115.0%, +109.3%, +104.9%, +98.6% and +67.1%.And this outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. Over the years it has been remarkably consistent. From 2000 - 2017, the composite yearly average gain for these strategies has beaten the market more than 19X over. Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that we're willing to share their latest stocks with you without cost or obligation.See Them Free>>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report TripAdvisor, Inc. (TRIP): Free Stock Analysis Report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report Expedia Group, Inc. (EXPE): Free Stock Analysis Report Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research