Starting a mail order business is challenging and fun, especially if you have a niche product that is novel or has a large following. The best types of mail order businesses these days are those that sell unique products for specialized use to sophisticated buyers. They may be in the medical, industrial, educational, government, or commercial sectors. Additionally, there are several key factors that you should also consider.

The product decision is the most critical element initially when starting a mail order business. Your product selection must have a real sales demand. This is something you can research online by looking up the number of searches people are doing on various descriptive terms. For example, if you’re thinking of selling mail-order alarm clocks, go to Google’s keyword tool and search for terms like “alarm clock,” “electric alarm clock,” “wooden alarm clock,” and so on. – any terms that describe the types of products you intend to sell. What you’re looking for is a large number of searches, probably over 100,000 a month. This means that there is a lot of demand for that product. If you find searches under 20,000 per month, it’s going to be hard to turn a profit after factoring in marketing and order processing expenses and just moving on to another product idea. After you find your set of products, make sure you can sell it for the price you need to make an adequate or decent margin. You’re looking at at least a 20% gross sales margin here. Again, use a search engine and search for the specific products you intend to sell. Then propose a price range. This will give you the upper and lower price range. If you can make a profit at a low price, the product is likely to be profitable. If not, move on.

Deciding how to market your products is an important factor in starting a mail order business. Traditional catalog marketing has become very expensive due to increasing costs for paper, printing, and shipping. There’s also a lot of spam in everyone’s mailbox these days, so your catalog will probably go missing. Finally, it is very unfriendly to the environment to kill trees for a catalogue, 80% of which will simply be mailed out. In other words, the traditional mail-order economy is no longer working well. The solution is to go online and mobile if you are really adventurous. Selling online is the best solution for almost all products. You’re looking for a customer base that works efficiently online, as opposed to many seniors who still prefer paper and mail (although assuming that all seniors are like this would be a huge mistake). Some types of businesses still operate with paper catalogs for good reason, for example carpet and fabric stores where the customer needs to see the design and textures of the product “in the flesh” as much as possible. Either way, you’ll need to get email lists, addresses, and other ways to contact potential customers and deliver your online or offline catalog to them so they can buy from you. Pay-per-click ads are a good place to start, although online social networking sites have become extremely popular and useful.

Software and infrastructure setup is the next important consideration when starting a mail order business. When an order arrives, you must register it, process a credit card, submit an invoice, possibly ship the order to a fulfillment house or drop shipping partner, and post the transaction. Various systems exist for doing this, from stand-alone mail order software to fully automated online systems with payment processing and integrated shipping logistics and pricing. When you’re just starting out, it’s often best to use standalone software with a standard ordering that takes a web form and shopping cart, or an 800 number to call and place orders. Fax orders are still used for business transactions, especially for high-value items. Orders can also arrive by mail. That’s why it’s good to have a complete software package when starting a mail order business, as you get full control over the process, regardless of the sales channel. Later, if your business growth warrants it, you can invest in a fully automated online system with all the bells and whistles.

There are multiple factors for success in starting a mail order business. These include product choices, how you will acquire customers, the channels you use to process orders, and the technology systems you use. Making the right decisions from the start will help your business succeed in the long run.