An average mailing by a small, one person mail order company is
generally about a thousand pieces, and many such operators
rarely mail more than a hundred pieces per week. If you know
your conversion statistics, you know that the order return on
mailings is about 1% to 2% when using a rented list of names, up
to 5% or more when mailing to your own customer list.

Using those figures, the response rate would be about 2 orders
from a mailing of 100 when using a cold list, and about 5 to 10
orders when mailing to your own customer list for each 100
pieces mailed.

Contrast this to a major catalog mailing house such as Miles
Kimball, Hanover House, Lillian Vernon, Johnson-Smith or L.L.
Bean, each of whom might consider a mailing of six million
pieces a month or every few months.

Keep in mind that these are catalog merchandisers - mass
mailers, not manufacturers. Not publishers. Mailers!