Today, a trip to any of the stores will find customers scanning the pages of the huge, colorfully illustrated catalogs, fascinated by the array and variety of products, ordering items not in the store (but probably available only a few steps away in a nearby store). The case histories of the mail order Horatio Algers would fill a tome the size of one of those familiar catalogs, but it is not with them that we are concerned. Our task is to show how anyone with limited capital can get into the business. As already indicated, mail order can be a business in itself or a department in an established enterprise. The large companies have the funds to hire experienced people for organizing such subsidiary departments; but the small businessman, storekeeper, mechanic, farmer, housewife, need a less expensive way; it is for them that this book is intended. Also for the worker who cannot afford to quit his job but wishes to try mail order as a part-time vocation (evenings and weekends). The resourceful but shy individual who has always looked on mail order as a business ideally suited to his personality should find here the information needed in getting started at last. Because most of these small people will generally begin with one or two products, or a line of related products, the discussions to follow will take up the problems they are most likely to encounter, rather than the problems of large, well-staffed establishments. How To Pick A Winning Idea IF EXPERIENCE TEACHES ANYthing, it is that most newcomers break into mail order with specialties or novelty items; this, however, does not preclude beginning with staples. It should be pointed out that once established, the “staple” mail order firm has a better chance for survival than the “specialty” firm. Too often, phenomenal results are obtained with a specialty for a year or even two, and then the orders begin dropping off, the advertising cost per sale goes up, and suddenly the head of the firm is looking for a new item or a new business or his old job. If your forte is the novelty or specialty, do not let this touch of pessimism dampen your ambition; its intent is rather to forewarn you and to anticipate such an eventuality by preparing substitutes or side-lines long before the decline. Then too, the sad day may never come. There are well-established mail order firms doing business with the same item they introduced ten or twenty years ago.
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Direct Mail Special Report
04-30-2007
