Money-making Niches!

I firmly believe there is more ways to make money than there ever have been. And while we may bemoan the fact we can't find a profitable product (or service) to sell the fact remains there are a great many people getting rich or at least making money from any number of different niches or target audiences. Here is a brief sample of some different catalog concepts that have proven to be moneymakers. And in some cases...a lot of money!

Duane Abbajay co-owns "Just for Redheads" with his wife, Paula Pennypacker. This Arizona based catalog sells a variety of skin-care, beauty and health products targeted at, you guessed it! Redheads, to the tune of well over $1,000,000 per year based on a catalog circulation of 150,000.

Debbie Ducommun is the owner of the California based "The Rat-alog" a catalog of gifts for of all things...rat lovers! She does $40,000 per year in sales on a circulation base of 4,000.

Philip Cushway of San Francisco started "Artrock" a rock-memorabilia catalog that has an annual circulation of 1,000,000 and does millions per year in sales.

Jason Mischel is in a very competitive market, pet supplies, but his catalog "Great Companions" still manages to do about $5,000,000 in sales per year based on a catalog circulation of 2,000,000.

Anne Marcus is the president of AnneMail, a Hot Springs, AZ-based cataloger/retailer of specialty toys. Her annual catalog circulation is only 20,000 but racks up sales of about 1/2 million dollars.

Eleanor Edmondson owns the Atlanta based catalog "Bas Blue" which sells books, literary accessories and gifts. Her annual sales are about $9,000,000.

Stacey Small owns "Botanical Animal" which provides natural and herbal homeopathic products for horses, cats, and dogs. It has annual sales of about $500,000 based on a circulation of 100,000.

Jack Kawaky of the catalog, "Captain Jacks" sells a variety of nautical software and other products for mariners. Annual sales are more than $5,000,000 per year with a circulation of 500,000.

Mary Going of Freeport, Maine, has a catalog called "Firegirl" which sells hot-sauces. Her annual sales are about 100,000 and her circulation is less than 10,000.

This is not to say the success these people have had has come easy. Eleanor Edmondson of "Bas Blue" explains:

"Before I started Bas Bleu, I did as much research and planning as I could. But soon it became clear that the time had come just to take a deep breath and jump in. We planned an initial mailing of 50,000; large enough to give us results we could analyze but not so big that it would break the bank. The sales results for that first catalog were not inspiring, but the emotional reaction from potential customers, such as enthusiastic letters, faxes, and phone calls with the 'I'll buy something next time' refrain, let us know we were on to something."

"We started analyzing and fine-tuning what we were doing, in terms of merchandise, lists, paper, printing, production, and mailing. It was very important to be able to stick with it to buy the time to figure out what was working and what was not, and to know what to change and what to retain."

I personally have heard this same story over and over again, both in a retail and mail order/catalog environment. Finally, the person stops studying and jumps in with both feet, using the best information available to them. Mistakes are made along the way...but if you go small and test you'll have the opportunity in the long run to make things right.

Take care,

Mike Winicki