Catalog Start-ups: What You Need to Know

A catalog business starts with the right merchandise. Most often, the entrepreneurs who start catalogs have a passion for their products. They are merchandise-oriented individuals who eat, sleep and breathe the products.

(I started teaching a second-year MBA course on direct marketing at Indiana University in 1997, and I always told my students that if they didn’t know the answer to a question, simply write “merchandising,” and I’d give them 50-percent credit.)