📬 How to Grow Your Mailbox Business

Facebook Groups

• Join local Facebook groups and find ways to provide value to the community

• Cost = $0

NextDoor App

• Become a part of the community, provide value, join the conversation

• Link here

• Cost = $0

Post Flyers

• Door hangers. Parking lots. Local offices. Go find your customers.

• Example design

• Cost = $40

Mail Blast

• USPS’s targeted EDDM local mail blasts

• Link here

• Cost = $250

Coffee Bar

• Sell coffee (check local health rules first, maybe ice cold canned coffee, you get the idea)

• Cost = $700 for an espresso machine

• Have a lounge/cowork area for people to sit and hang out

• $4 coffee x 10/day = $1200/m = $14k/yr

Passport Photos

• People pay $25 for terrible passport photos at CVS that last for 10 years, charge a little more to make it amazing

• “These last 10 years, let’s make it nice”

• Most shops have a nice printer already so startup costs would be minimal

• $49 per shoot and prints x 3/day = $4410/mo = $53k/yr

Good Looking Socials

• Make your store a place where people want to be

• Your competition is the post office, which means the bar is very low

• The best example → https://www.instagram.com/7eleven/

• Easy first step → https://tigermail.co

Local Press

• Get hyper local pages to post about you

• Examples if you’re in Orange County, CA:

  • https://www.instagram.com/ocfeed/

  • https://www.instagram.com/visittheoc

  • https://www.instagram.com/allthingsorangecounty

  • https://www.instagram.com/orangecountynews

• Every town has versions of this and they’re always looking for a good story to tell

• Give them a good story to tell

• Cost = $0

Good Reviews

• “Free month for a google review”

• Google/Yelp Reviews matter a ton - treat them like currency

• Cost = $0

User Experience

• Put a gift in each new mailbox (chocolates, thank you card, etc.)

• Put a rose in each box owners birthday

• Make a customer profile for every box with hobbies and personal stories

• Make a weekly gossip column and print it out and put it in there boxes

• Pretend like you’re a 5-star boutique hotel and the mailbox customers are your guests

• Mailbox Customers → Mailbox Members

• Cost = Not Much

Be Like Judy

• Watch this → https://www.instagram.com/p/DDSap-YRBMi/

  • https://www.instagram.com/judysfamilycafe

  • https://www.tiktok.com/@judysfamilycafe

  • https://www.instagram.com/p/DDSap-YRBMi/

• Her revenue has increased 50% and she had to move her restaurant into a new location to accommodate all the new customers and business she has been getting due to her brilliant social media posts

• Cost = $0

Host Meetups

• You’re already paying for rent, you already have the space, what are some creative ways to use it?

• Cool idea → https://snailmailsocialclub.wordpress.com/

• Actually have been to this, they do about $10k in a weekend → https://www.instagram.com/beardrips/

Law Firms

• We’ve heard of law firms opening pack-and-ships in nextdoor retail spaces to vertically integrate when their clients who need a private address

Cowork Spaces

• Cowork spaces are adding mailboxes for their customers to use for their remote businesses and adding an extra revenue stream

Internet Auctions

• One shop tapped into the online auction world and now holds the items until they are sold, then ships them to the winner once its over.

• She says the auction shipping alone has now become over 50% of her revenue

• Link here

Become the “Spot for X”

• A shop in Los Angeles specializes in shipping weird "hard to ship" things (ex: highly delicate one-of-a-kind props from movies) and now through word of mouth that's become their brand and bread and butter

College Kids

• Two different shops that both found success in being next door to a major university offering secure package receiving for students (one school has freshman needing 2000 mailboxes and change every semester)

• Plus they get a bonus spike in shipping when the semester ends and they need to send things home

Customer to Owner (3x)

• A customer of a 20-year old shop in Canada became the owner and makes $8500/mo just in recurring mailbox revenue. And he was basically given the store after becoming friends with the owner and hearing she was looking to retire.

• Same story again in Los Angeles (with 1200 mailboxes, mostly full), the couple started as mailbox customers and ended up buying the business before it ever went to market by talking with the owner

• And again with a different store in Los Angeles (500 mailboxes, sold out), the customer became the owner

Uhaul Rentals

• Some stores use their extra parking lot space to offer Uhaul rentals

• On the high end earning $76k/year, on the low end still covering their utilities bill for minimal work

• Here’s a guy that breaks it down and made $2500 in his first two months

• Apply here

Ecommerce Fulfillment

• One shop turned it’s unused back office into a storage room for a local e-commerce business and packs and ships out their orders everyday

• $2/per order x 35 orders a day = $2100/mo = $25k/yr