How to Conduct a Small Mail Order Business: Hints and Helps
A 16-page pamphlet sold for 5 cents as No. 27 of the Multum in Parvo Library, a monthly series published by A. B. Courtney in Boston, March 1896.
What it is
A 16-page pamphlet sold for 5 cents as No. 27 of the Multum in Parvo Library, a monthly series published by A. B. Courtney in Boston, March 1896. W. E. Skinner gives short hints for starting a mail order trade: prefer novelties to staples, since people will not send away for what the local shop stocks, though watches, silverware and jewelry sell well. His examples include 'frozen perfumery' cakes of plaster that cost about 4 cents and sell at ten, cheap books, Japanese crepe napkins and Swiss watches. He warns against obscene goods, 'work at home' schemes and outright lies, and tells readers to pack circulars in every parcel, check postage, and distrust other people's 'cost and result' tables. A reprinted piece on the word 'Free' and a page of advertising axioms follow. The last four pages are unrelated jokes used as filler.
Why read it now
What holds: the product advice still frames a small online shop. Sell what buyers cannot get locally, keep items light to ship, and treat the first order as the start of repeat sales by packing a catalogue in every parcel, which is today's insert card or post-purchase email. The warning that another advertiser's 'cost and result' table misleads, because a paper that pays one trade may not pay another, is the right caution for benchmark CPMs and ROAS figures borrowed from other sectors: test your own. The axiom that poor goods sell only once is the case for product quality over clever ads. What has dated, and worse: the pamphlet treats mild deception as normal. It passes over plaster sold as a 'wonder stone', sachet powder sold as 'Love Powders', napkins bought by people who imagine silk, and the sale of customers' letters as mailing lists, which Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law bars without consent. Use: before listing a product online, run Skinner's checks: local availability, shipping weight, margin after delivery cost, and a reason to reorder.
Passages worth keeping
A dash of adjectives now and then is customary and acceptable, for mild exaggeration is expected. Nevertheless you must not say that a ring has a diamond setting if it is only glass.
المبالغة الخفيفة في الوصف مقبولة في الإعلان عند الكاتب، لكن الكذب في حقيقة السلعة نفسها خط لا يجوز تجاوزه.
If your first filling of an order gives satisfaction, you are quite sure to get a second order, and possibly several subsequent orders.
رضا العميل عن طلبه الأول هو أرخص طريق إلى الطلب الثاني والثالث، ولذلك يرفق التاجر كتالوجه مع كل طرد.
The so-called “cost and result” schedules are usually only valuable to the advertiser who prepares them as a result of his own experience.
أرقام نتائج الإعلان لا تفيد إلا صاحبها، لأن الوسيلة التي تنجح مع سلعة قد تفشل مع سلعة أخرى.
Good goods will sell to good people constantly. Poor goods only once.
السلعة الجيدة تجلب عملاء دائمين، أما الرديئة فتباع مرة واحدة ثم يذهب العميل ولا يعود.
It is hard to believe that anyone answers a “Free” ad. twice, but this class of advertising grows and prospers.
إعلانات «مجانًا» تستمر وتربح رغم أن أحدًا لا يقع فيها مرتين، لأن جمهورًا جديدًا يتعلم الدرس بنفسه كل مرة.
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