How to Pick the Perfect Product
for Mail Order Sales
So you've done some investigating into
mail order and haven't
found something you'd like to sell. Here are some tips that
should point you in the right direction.
First, you must have a specific category
of goods you'd like to
sell.. You must enjoy what you're doing or it won't be worth
your trouble, so you should pick some category of goods that
falls within an area of interest to you.
Don't be afraid that the market might already
be saturated; if
a lot of people are already selling that class of goods, it's
because the market calls for that much product.
If you're a hot dancer, you might be able
to put together a
dance course of dancercise program, or sell dancewear. If
you're into tennis, the number of gadgets for tennis players,,
or in fact, any sport or hobby is staggering, and marketed
correctly, most of them will make money. If knowledge in a
certain field is your stock-in-trade, by all means, become a
writer!
Books are probably the safest and hottest
commodities you can
sell by mail. There are trade magazines for virtually every
kind of business and private venture and every private interest
group or hobby in existence. Check your library for the name of
these magazines, get copies of them by hook or crook, and find
out what's being offered to people in the industry.
Trade magazines are where new products
are first introduced, and
you can often get exclusive rights to a marvellous idea just
because you were brave enough to ask.
One of the most important considerations
is availability.
If you have exclusive rights to a product,
you can virtually
write your own ticket. Mind you, it must be an item in fairly
great demand or something for which you can create a demand.
It should generally be an item you cannot
buy in stores or
cannot be bought in stores for the price you can ask by mail.
If it can be bought in stores at a comparable price, then your
offering should have some special feature about it that makes it
unique. Don't try to compete with retail outlets.
The next consideration is price and quantity.
You must be able to produce or supply yourself
with the item at
the very least at one-third of your selling price, and in most
cases the higher your markup the better. The actual selling
price must still represent good value to the customer, but don't
be too concerned about undercutting just yet, since the
difference between retail and supplier's factory-direct price is
usually substantial.
In order to get the price necessary to
provide a good profit
margin, you should not have to buy up a factory's entire
production either. It should be possible to buy hundred or
gross lots at a fair cost (if you're not dealing in that kind of
volume at some point, it won't be worth you while in the first
place).
If you are selling merchandise, you must
have some sort of
guarantee and be able to back it up.
A product that routinely breaks down before
the warranty expires
won't do much for your image and will cost you must more than
just a refund over both the short and long term.
If you are selling books, you can get away
without a guarantee
and in fact one of the most successful mail order firms in
existence has made it a point of pride that they offer no
guarantees at any item, even on a new publication costing $1,000!
Posters have traditionally been hot mail
order sellers, but they
have one very serious drawback: they require expensive tubes
for safe shipping, and those tubes and the postage they require
often cost more than the poster itself. Which brings us to the
next point: how easily and cheaply... and safely can it be
shipped?
The product must also be understood by
the buyer before it's
actually purchased. Anything requiring a demonstration or great
amounts of instruction in its use is better left to salesmen on
the retail floor.
If you are selling direct from advertisements,
keep the items
under $25 unless they are well-known and exceptional products.
When selling by direct mail, higher priced items can be sold
since you're able to take much more space to explain the article.
Finally, it must be something that is either
used up, purchased
repeatedly, can be accessorized or leads to the sale of another
item, either from a catalog or future sales campaign.
The real money in mail order is made form
repeat sales where the
expenditures required to sell a given number of items is vastly
reduced.
