Mail Order Business

2008-03-15T00:16:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS MAIL ORDER BUSINESS?

Mail Order business is nothing but doing business by mail or post parcels. It is an unique business that allows you to sell and buy by mail without contacting any person.

People, in India and foreign countries are always fascinated by things unique and foreign. They like to buy the products. Sometimes they are so busy that they do not have much time to go to these sellers or they may be required to spend some amount as travel expense, to contact these sellers. There fore they prefer the convenience of shopping by mail. They get the products by mail or post parcels.

On the other hand, sellers who are doing business in their respective local places are not able to contact these prospecting distant buyers to market their fascinating products. Therefore they also prefer the convenience of mailing to contact these buyers. They send brochures containing details of their products and services, price-list and other desired information to these customers by mail and convince them to take a buying decision. Later, when they get orders, they dispatch their products by mail or post parcels.

Thus, the process of doing sell and buy business by mail, is called mail order business and the persons who are doing this business are called mail order dealers.

INTRODUCTION TO MAIL ORDER BUSINESS

Standardization, grading, branding and packaging brought about the growth of mail order business. The seller approaches the prospects by mail publicity i.e., sending circulars, price-list, catalogue, booklets, samples. etc., through post office. Up to date mailing list is maintained. Sometimes local agents are also employed for order collection, execution as well as collection of dues, when sale is by installments. Usually orders are collected as well as executed through the mail by V.P.P.

Advantage:

1. An independent mail order business can be conducted at any place.

2. The capital requirement will be low. If it acts as a middle man and an order collecting Agency, it will not be required to purchase stocks and maintain shop.

3. The running and establishment charges are low. It can quote lower prices than local retail prices.

4. It can be adopted as a side activity by the departmental store. An enterprising manufacturer also can establish direct relations with buyers by opening a mail order section in his sales organization.

5. It can give maximum local convenience just like street vendors, and peddlers. The buyers get home delivery of goods.

6. The mail order advertisement reaches all persons. The advertisement can be accurately measured by “Keying” it and the successful media of advertising can be ascertained.

7. Mail Order firms have recently started credit sale of non-durable goods. Families with average means of income find it convenient to purchase on credit.

8. Recently in many countries mail order firms have started selling goods on “sale or return” basis and also give full guarantee regarding quality of goods.

MAIL ORDER BUSINESS is a simple, at the same time, very interesting business. Here, as a mail order dealer, you have to prepare literatures about your products that you are manufacturing/newly selected. Your have to mail these literatures to your customers. As the post of faces are situated almost everywhere in the world, you can send your literatures locally, nationally and internationally.

Mail Order business is very different from local business. The local business attracts customers from its surrounding area, while the mail order business attracts customers from all over the world.

Mail Order business is a continuous process You should continue sending your literature to new customers every month. You never know when you will get a positive response. It will depend on the way you present your literatures. If the customers are impressed by your literatures, surely you will get advance money with order.

As soon as you receive the order from your customers you should immediately send the promised products by mail post parcels. The parcels can be booked in any of your local post office.

Mail Order business is a home based business. It can be carried –out from your sweet home. No show room or office is required. Any man or woman, old or young, employed or unemployed can start this business. A fair knowledge of English is enough to do this business, and more importantly it is easy to establish as it does not required to complete any legal formalities. You are free to make all decisions and enjoy all the profits.

The initial investment required to start this business is negligible. No registration or membership is required to start this business. Wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, and home business men doing this business find it profitable to market their products. There is vast scope in India and foreign countries, for mail order dealers.

BEST SELLING PRODUCTS IN MAIL ORDER BUSINESS.

There are many products that you can sell in mail order business. In the beginning, as a new mail order dealer, you have always to start with light weight and very low cost products. The following products are strongly recommended by us as best items to sell by mail order.

Examples of goods sold by mail order business are:

1. Books 2. Information’s reports. 3. Toys 4. Watches 5. Fountain Pens 6. Clothes 7. Foot wears 8. Seeds 9. Small appliances 10. Common drugs or Cosmetics 11. Ready made food items etc. 12. Hobby/pen pal/philately/mail order publications. 13. Postal stationary /philately Items/rubber stamps & pads etc. 14. Attractive novelty items like toys, dolls, jewellery-handicrafts items …etc.

STARTING CAPITAL

Mail Order business is a small investment operated business. Here, you don’t have to invest a large amount to start this business. Even, when you start a small local business, you have to invest amount of Rs. 1,500/- per month as rent. But in mail order business you don’t have to spend any amount on rent as it is home based business.

Initial investment required to start mail order business is negligible, all you need, air mail envelopes, and postage stamps. Later, when you start to manufacture some products, you can invest more amount to prepare literatures for your products.

When you select commission mailing business, your name and address rubber stamp and some postal stamps are enough to start it and you can earn extra money.

When you have started mail order business, cash flow can not definitely be a problem. You receive cash in advance and you don’t have any added postal charges either. These are paid by the customers who order the products, like that you can collect hundreds to thousands of rupees daily for a few hours of pleasant easy work that you do right from your home.

HOW TO START MAIL ORDER BUSINESS

To start mail order business, you must do two main things in the beginning. First is to select your product and second is to prepare circulars for your mail order product. Both are equally important to create the impact on buyers and convince them to take a buying decision.

(a) Selection of mail order product:

You are a prime source or dealer of a prime source, that doesn’t matter. But the product that you select should be very unique and attractive.

If you are a prime source, i.e., manufacturing/producer of any product, then you can start selling your products. But as a new mail market you should select very light weight and low cost products only.

The product you select should be light in weight as you will be sending these light products by post parcels. The postal charges for light products are very less. Therefore the price, you quote for that product will be less and you will get a good response and profit of it.

As a mail order dealer, you have to contact every buyers personally by mail and they are in far distant.

For good start, you should get orders in your first mailing itself. For that you should deal with low-cost products only. Heavy products costing very high will not give the customers any facility to choose your products. As first they have to trust you. When you deal small low cost products, they will send you advance money, without any hesitation. Later when you mail promised products in time and they trust you, and send you advance money for high cost products. There you will get good profit and regular customers also.

(b) Preparation of product literature:

Selection of good, unique, attractive, consumer product is not enough in mail order business to get good response. You have to introduce it to your customers. When you deal with your local customers, you have direct contact with them, you can show the product and explain its specifications. But when your customers are in far distant, and you are sure that there is a good market, waiting for you, then you should prepare circulars about your product that you are dealing.

The circulars that you prepare should give complete details of your product like weight, height, depth, and other required specifications. You should include rate of the product in your circulars. The price you quote for your product should include the postage expenses also. Postage to foreign countries is very high and it is different for different countries.

When you select more than one product, you can prepare folded type literature describing every products in each page.

(c) Language used:

English is the only language used by every mail order dealers to prepare circulars as it is the only language recognized by the people all over the world.

Therefore, now select your product and prepare your circulars, and go ahead. Print 1,000 to 10,000 copies and try to mail them all over the world, don’t stop the mailing till you finish and wait for the results to come, more you mail and more you will receive it is a fact.

ADVERTISING IN MAIL ORDER BUSINESS

Besides mailing circulars, the mail order dealers advertise their products in many publications. For this they prepare some attractive advertisements.

There are namely two types advertisements used in mail order business, i.e.,

(a) Classified Advertisement

It is in the form of descriptive statement prepared to convince customers, and tell the customers, about the quality of the products, publishers will publish this type of advertisements, under any heading, related to the matter of advertisements. Rates for such advertisements are calculated as per the word or line.

As every advertisement is classified under particular heading, it is easy for people to select and read advertisements of their interest. It is very cheap and best type to advertise your product in the beginning, but not attractive one.

(b) Camera Ready Advertisement

It is well type-settled and designed advertisement, normally in the form of square or rectangle. Here you can use both alphabetic letters and some designs to prepare advertisements. You can put your logo or any symbol/design describe your products/services.

At first you must prepare a rough figure of your advertisement, by using symbols and designs, when you have finished it, you have to go to the type setter. They will type-set your matter in their Computers and print it by laser printers. This type of advertisement surely produce more response than classifieds as it is get attracted by its design on symbols. It is very costly process, than previous one, but it is effective one to advertise your product.

HOW TO GET MAIL ORDER CUSTOMERS?

One of the best methods to get more mail order customers is to advertise your products in national news papers/magazines/M.O. publications regularly. Your advertisement in many publications for a regular period will bring you a lot of inquiries from the readers.

But many dealers do not understand what to do with these inquiries and how to change the inquiries into valuable orders. But your inquiries from the customers, is to prepare a mailing list: (is a list of names and addresses of these prospective buyers) for your reference.

Immediately contact these people by mailing required circulars. This will create a good image about you and your service. This is the first contact with your new customers. You may/may not get response from this first contact itself. Even though you don’t get response from this first contact. You should not step sending your literature.

WHAT REALLY SELLS IN THE MAIL ORDER MAGAZINES

You can only make money with the mail order magazines if you understand exactly WHO reads them. The mail order magazines are trade papers read almost exclusively by mail order dealers or by opportunity seekers, who are in reality aspiring mail order dealers. They will only buy merchandise that will help them in the operation of a mail order business. It is almost always a waste of money to advertise merchandise which is intended for general consumption in the mail order magazines, unless you are offering it on a wholesale or drop-ship basis. Below is a brief description of twenty two products or services that can be sold successfully through the mail order magazines.

1. RUBBER STAMPS.

Every mail order dealer purchases at least one name and address rubber stamp. He also purchases “stock stamps” with slogans such as “Big, Mails Wanted”, “Commission Circulars” Wanted, “Third Class Mail”, “Your Ad Solicited”, etc., Rubber stamps sell well in the mail order magazines because dealers use them in the conduct of their business.

2. MAILING LISTS.

Mail order dealers constantly buy mailing lists of the ever present opportunity seekers, new mothers, book buyers, gift buyers etc. You can sell mailing lists on plain paper or gummed labels. Naturally you can charge more for the lists on gummed labels.

3. BIG MAILS.

Anyone who regularly advertises “Big Mails” in the mail order magazines will get orders for them. Big Mails consists of envelopes full of mail order magazines, ad sheets and circulars of every imaginable kind. The “Big Mail Order Dealer” earns his profit by selling a variety of sizes of ad space and subscriptions in the publications which he co-publishes. He also makes money from the items of fared on the circulars which he includes in his big mails.

4. CIRCULAR MAILING SERVICE.

Set up an efficient, and good dependable mailing service so that dealers can get their circulars into the hands of real mail order buyers. Advertise it regularly in the mail order magazines and you will soon have all the circular mailing business you can possibly handle.

5. PRINTING.

Every mail order dealer buys printing. He buys envelopes, sales letters, circulars, book-lets, catalogs, ad sheets, brochures, price lists, letterheads, mail order magazines, and a thousand other things. If you do mimeographing, letter press, or offset printing , advertise your service in the mail order magazines. It is probably the mail order magazines number one all-time profit maker.

6. INFORMATION FOIOS.

Mail order dealers will always buy information that will help them succeed in the mail order business. Folios that deal with any practical aspect of mail order selling can be sold through the mail order magazines. If you have produced your own folio and are willing to drop-ship orders for other dealers, you will definitely make money.

7. DROP-SHIP AND WHOLESALE OFFERS.

If you have a large stock of merchandise which is suitable for mail order sales, and are willing to supply it on a drop-ship (single order at wholesale prices), or on a wholesale basis, then you should advertise in the mail order magazines. Dealers are constantly looking for new products to sell by mail. If you plan to sell on a wholesale basis only you should offer your product in very small wholesale lots, if possible. Most mail order dealers are part-timers and do not have vast sums of money to invest in untested merchandise.

8. SAMPLE COPIES OF MAIL ORDER MAGAZINES.

Mail order dealers have a very insatiable appetite for new mail trade magazines, which is why hundreds of them come into existence and then disappear every year. If you publish or co-publish a mail order magazine, advertise sample copies of it in other publications and you will get requests for it. Regard your sample copy as a “leader item” or as a ‘good will builder’. It should be your way of getting your other offers into the hands of a very many prospective mail order buyers. You will probably sell some ads, but do not expect to sell too many subscriptions. Except for a few of the leading publications, very few people subscribe to mail order magazines.

9. GUMMED LABELS.

Labels of any kind are “naturals” for many of the mail order magazines. Name and address label, shipping labels, addressing labels, slogan labels etc.

10. NAME LISTING SERVICE.

Whether he admits it or not, most every mail order dealer is a “Big Mail Addict”. If you compile mailing lists and work with another dealer who does, dealers will pay to put their names on the lists. You can advertise your name listing service in any mail order magazine and get orders for it.

11. COMMISSION CIRCULARS.

There are circular mailers who watch every issue of every mail order magazine always looking for new sources of commission circulars. There is no better way to advertise commission circulars than by placing ads in the mail order magazines.

12. COPY WRITING SERVICE.

If you have a natural flair for writing ads, sales letters and circulars…and if you have a good basic knowledge of mail order SELLING, you can sell your services through many of the better mail order magazines. There are very few good mail order copy writers at present. Here is a very basic need. Can you fill it?

13. AD DESIGN.

Another service which is greatly in demand, the commercial artist who can create eye catching ads and circulars which dealers can use to sell their products. There are only a few dealers who are now offering this service, but there is room for a dozen or so.

14. TYPE SETTING.

Most mail order printers and magazines now require “camera ready” copy. This has created a big demand for dealers who offer quality, reasonably priced typesetting that hae so much business they don’t even bother to advertise.

Related to typesetting are the “clip art” books which are used by dealers who prepare their own “camera ready copy”. Right now as always, you ‘ll find clip-art books advertised in mail order publications.

15. PENPAL LONELY HEARTS MAGAZINE.

For some reason, you will find that the mail order magazines have always been good places to sell these types of publications. It may be because they are the only kinds of magazines, other than the mail-order magazines that are co-publishable. Most mail order magazines, will accept ads for legitimate matrimonial and pen pal magazines, however, very few will accept any “ adult only” ads. Too many readers object and some mail order dealers are minors.

16. HOBBY MAGAZINES.

You can sell almost any kind of hobby publication through the mail order magazines. This is because many dealers handle hobby merchandise and are always looking for new ways to sell it. Many dealers and readers are hobbyists and collectors themselves.

17. FORMULAS.

Dealers buy formulas for two reasons. Some dealers reprint the formula and sell it by running ads in national publications. (“Sure way to kill cock-roaches”, etc.) Some even manufacture the product itself and sell it by mail. Closely related to formulas selling is recipe selling. If you can create new recipes or have exceptional ones, you advertise and sell recipes over and over again.

18. CATALOGS.

If you can produce LOW COST catalogs which dealers can mail to their customers offering books, novelties, gift items, baby merchandise, printed forms, etc. You would be well advised to offer your services in the mail order magazines.

19. UNPRINTED DEALERS MERCHANDISE.

If you can supply merchandise which the dealer can use in his MAIL ORDER BUSINESS, at bargain prices, you an sell it profitably in the mail order magazines. Examples: unprinted envelopes, typewriter ribbons, addressing labels, stencils, scratch pads, etc. There are a few successful dealers who even sell large, bulky items like type writers, mimeograph machines, file cabinets, paper cutters and printing presses by mail.

20. AD SPACE.

Every mail order dealer buys ad space. If you publish or co-publish a mail order magazine, tabloid or ad sheet you can sell ad space by advertising it in other mail order magazines.

21. ADS TO RUN UNDER YOUR NAME.

Can you supply ready made ad copies which other dealers can run under their names and fill their orders on a drop ship basis? If so, print up your ads and sell them through the mail order magazines. If you can supply “camera ready” ads and circulars, so much the better!

22. MAIL ORDER PLANS.

Opportunity seekers are always looking for new mail order plans. If you have some practical legitimate workable plans that others can use to make money by mail, print them up and advertise them in the mail order magazines.

You will find that 99% of all the ads in the mail order magazines fall into one of the categories listed above. If you are selling a product or service that fits into one of these categories, you can safely advertise it in the mail order magazines.

23. One you are well entrenched use classified columns of big magazines having a huge circulation. This will help you to get lot of more advertising and wider exposure and more orders in less spending.

24. Always put back whatever money you earn into Mail Order itself. Because it is the fact that to earn money spent money.

25. Always get the printing of literature done from a good printer. Only good printing piece get attention, rest meet the fate of rotting in dust bin irrespective of what you offer.

26. Always give a personal reply to your enquiries. This alone will help you to increase your business by manifold.

27. Offer some concession to your clients on resale of your products, this means that after your first order offer to your client some concession on your products.

28. Keep accurate record of all your sales and purchase.

29. Above all have a will to stick in mail order business, never expect miracles overnight. Mail order is a tough nut to crack. Apply yourself with sincerely.

Mary Shyamala's Mail Order Business

Mail Order Business

INTRODUCTION TO MAIL ORDER BUSINESS