PLAN No. 457. SELLING HAIR TONIC
Never mind what kind of hair tonic it was. There are many ways of making various kinds, and those who wish to go into the business of selling hair tonic can select the one that suits him best. But it’s the selling idea you are after, and here is how one young man did it:
To avoid the necessity of sending a 12-ounce bottle by express, at a cost to the buyer of 40 to 50 cents, he got a hair specialist to condense it into one ounce, so he could send it in a common mailing case for less than 5 cents postage, and pay that himself. All the buyer had to do was to add enough water to the condensed preparation to make 12 ounces of good hair tonic, and to a list of names of people who had sent letters to other hair-tonic advertisers he mailed a neat little booklet telling all about his condensed hair tonic, and offering to send a 1-ounce bottle for 50 cents, also enclosing a fancy label for a 12-ounce bottle.
Out of 4,000 such names, he sold 900 of the 50-cent bottles; then he advertised and got more names, sent more booklets and got more orders.
However, in order to encourage sales of two bottles at a time, he offered a neat, small purse, that cost him 10 cents in gross lots, and offered this as a premium with each sale of two bottles for $1, and, as most of those who wrote him were women, the purse brought the orders.