SPECIAL ADVICE FOR NON-AMERICAN MAIL ORDER DEALERS

A lot of American prospects will pass by your ads if you're using a foreign address. You have to emphasize in your ads and any sales material that American stamps and cash are accepted, or they may justifiably expect that they couldn't send you cash or stamps that would be any use to you.

One of the hugest international barriers is the fact of (sometimes amazingly) slower delivery between countries than within countries. When using an international mail-courier company (which I highly recommend), my foreign mail is delivered within 1 or 2 days directly to the foreign country's postal system, thus making delivery almost as fast as it would be within that country. That can be a considerable advantage when you consider that you may otherwise wait a week or more for your country's own postal system to get around to even getting it past the border or over the sea.

Another problem is xenophobia - the fear of strangers. All Americans are not alike on this count. People (American or otherwise) are like dogs - some will be friendly to strangers; some will immediately be wary or hostile. For those of you who are not United States residents but would like a piece of the American market, let me first say that it's going to take some work. I will do everything I can in this chapter to help you out. Of course, it is possible that you will be content with mail order marketing only in your own country, at least to start with. This decision will be up to you, and will depend mainly on how big a group of prospects you are able to reach in your own country, and how big the packages will be that you ship to customers (international mailing of medium-to-large sized packages is very expensive).

You cannot, unfortunately, market to the U.S. marketplace with the same ease that a U.S. dealer can. A U.S. dealer can buy printing as cheaply as $20 per thousand (2-sided 8.5x11") and mail 3.3 ounces for under 25 cents in quantities of 200 or more. The best method an international dealer can use to mass market to Americans is to pay an American printer to print his materials. Have this printer ship directly to an American professional mailer that you can trust to honestly mail every last circular.

The above example was an inner-middle circle technique that I have personally used, but the same principles (U.S. printing and U.S. distribution on behalf of a non-U.S. businessperson) can be applied to the outer circle.

CHOOSING A BANK

In Toronto, Canada (one of the seven financial capitals of the world), there is a lot of variation between banks. Some don't offer U.S. dollars accounts; some do but charge $1 each to cash checks. I managed to find one that operates virtually free. So be sure to shop around and ASK all your local banks about a U.S. dollars account. Another thing to ask is whether you will be able to withdraw U.S. cash, since small denominations can be used to mail directly to U.S. dealers to make purchases.

SETTING UP A UNITED STATES POST OFFICE BOX

A) Have a U.S. contact rent the box for you. He/she can regularly "clear the box" (take all the mail you've received, put it in a single package, and ship it to you). There are 3 problems with this method. First, the matter of trusting your U.S. contact to not steal money out of your mail and to keep up the arrangement indefinitely. Second, there will be huge delays between the time your prospects send orders and inquiries and the time you receive them. Third, there's the huge remailing expense, which you must pay, in addition to what you are paying your U.S. contact to do this work for you. All in all, the next option is a lot better ...

B) Have an international courier company do the work for you. It'll cost you, but it's a necessary expense.

SETTING UP A UNITED STATES CASH ACCOUNT

Let's say a Swede has given $1000 to a U.S. contact (Ethel) to set up a fund. The Swede wants to pay a U.S. dealer (George) for some advertising. All the Swede has to do is write a letter to Ethel saying "Send George a check for $100". Otherwise this Swede may pay $10 U.S. funds or more to write out a U.S. dollars check from his Swedish account. Not only that, but many U.S. dealers will automatically return checks not of a U.S. origin because their bank won't accept it, or the bank will charge an exorbitant fee to cash it. Even money orders, which are unquestioningly accepted as universal cash, get returned sometimes, if the U.S. recipient mistakes it for a check. I've even had one U.S. dealer (whom I sent a money order to) go to his bank and encounter an uniformed bank teller who actually told him to mail the money order back to me because it "could not be accepted". So he did. What a waste.

IRC's (INTERNATIONAL REPLY COUPONS)

IRCs are used when a person in country A wants a reply from a person in country B. If country B happens to be Zambia or New Zealand, it is very likely that the country A person cannot buy that country's stamps directly. So the country A person sends an IRC to the country B person, who cashes it in at a local post office for an airmail stamp. Since IRCs are universal, some dealers even accept certain amounts of IRCs as payment for advertising and other things. For example, an IRC is reimbursed in Canada for an 84 cent stamp.