You will know that your product is really good when you are asked to have an order for a trial quantity. When this happens, do this as quickly as possible. You should have your own mail order boxes and shipping labels with your company name, address and phone number on it. You’ll have to type the catalog companies name, address. The customers number should be above their name.
Unfortunately, when you sell to catalog companies, you don’t get cash with each order as with the typical mail order company. Everything is done on credit, so you’ll have to make up invoices to send to customers after you ship the product. You should request that payment be made at the end of the month after you shipped the product, or E.O.M. You should also offer a discount if payed in 10 days. Choose whether you will bill your customer for shipping, or ship prepaid.
The Final Word
Word of mouth about anything new is really the best publicity, and best of all it’s free! Look for magazines that you know that group of people will buy your product. Find the new products department, or similar title and send a package to the editors with a photo included. You’ll also want to include a press release announcing your product and who would buy it, and a very short and sweet cover letter. If you are mentioned in these magazine, it will bring in up to a hundred orders. That all depends on the magazine circulation and how much people want your product.
Doing these things will make the catalog companies take notice. They look in magazines for new products to be added to their catalogs and perhaps featured. That’s the beauty of it-them finding you instead of you sending anything to them. That will give you retail orders and catalog orders as well. Just imagine, if all the catalog companies on your list send out 10 million catalogs each year, with your product in them, you know how many sales you can possibly have!
Sales in catalogs are over one hundred billion each year. With a great product, you can start from zero and get to several million by just using catalogs. The best thing about this is that all you really need is just one product. It works with catalogs, but will not work if trying to get shelf space in a major retail store. Try to find companies that charge nothing to advertise your product. Some require an advertising allowance in order to sell your product. With your product exposed to millions of customers, you receive immediate credibility.