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| MAIL ORDER HUSBANDS: THE FUTURE OF WOMEN'S PERSONALS? |
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According to its founders, mail-order-husbands is a modern concept that is the wave of the future. Is that possible? As everyone knows there are dozens of organizations that arrange mail order brides. These organizations typically charge a service fee for you to meet their candidates and it is possible to arrange to marry these women as quickly as after a few correspondences. The brides often come from developing countries and they don't always speak the language of their suitors.
The online dating industry has done extremely well and there are seemingly endless amounts of web sites to register with. Many analysts expect continued growth over the next 4 years with more segmentation of the market. With specialized sites you can now register with services that focus on specific customers like mature adults, church-going mates, and even adult-minded swingers.
The co-founders of MailOrderHusbands.net think that they are on the cusp of the next big thing in online dating. Could that be possible?
Art Melton dreamed up the venture almost 10 years ago and has been married several times. Shahin Zonoobi manages the technical aspects of the web enterprise and is a 25 year old bachelor. With a host of US-based employees and offices around the world these are the two individuals behind what they claim is the fastest growing spousal-order fulfillment service in the world.
Art originally thought about pursuing the mail-order-husband service when he was on trip to Russia to meet prospective brides. This was his second venture in to the mail order spouse business. Even though his first marriage to a woman from Laos was not a success, his enthusiasm for the concept was strong. He says that he learned a lot from the previous failure and notes that the people involved should always be honest about who they really are and to always use your own picture.
In America you can buy anything.. right? That is part of the reason they thought their idea would work. According to Shahin "I moved to the US in 1999 and noticed that women here are very independent, and sometimes rich. I tried to meet them and figured online was the best place."
Even though they avoid questions about actual sales figures and marriage success rates through their services, they boast of tremendous success. In the few weeks we monitored their web site, some of the husband candidates were removed and a few were added. Whether they were actually united with a mate, we do not know.
Q: Why would a lady visit your site and order a husband?
Art: Many ladies are busy, they have full-time jobs, they are in a hurry, you name it, many reasons.
Q: Your website refers to a Success Story featuring a woman who met and married a man from eastern europe,.. how much contact do the parties have before a woman orders or meets her husband?
Shahin: It all depends on the woman. One customer actually went to Bolivia to meet her future husband before agreeing to marry him. And yet another was in such a hurry she wasn't even sure which one she ordered until he arrived, it all depends.
Q: What can a man expect if he registers with your service?.. Is it possible he will not know where he is going or to whom?
Art: Men are required to fill out a form, they can choose between having the ability to say no to an offer, they can choose to be available to only women on their own continent, there are many options. We had one man who was so eager to be a husband that he was even happy to move to Canada and marry a woman 35 years older than him.
Q: What does it cost the parties involved?
Art: It all depends on the demand. We have an excellent variety of quality bachelors, and the highest demand is for men around 30 years old with lots of hair. For example if you want to order a 52 year old bald man who has bad psioriasis, well then maybe $600.. but say we had a candidate that looked like a young Erik Estrada, well that kind of product doesn't last long, we typically charge around $9,000.
Q: $9,000 seems like a lot of money for arranging a marriage, are many women willing to pay that?
Art: Some women have a lot of money and they are willing to spend it. And that's if we had a young Erik Estrada. Most of our candidates are more like Ernest Borgnine or perhaps Abe Vigoda, there aren't many young Erik Estradas out there.
Q: Do the men have to pay something?
Shahin: Ah, yes. We have one candidate that hasn't had any offers. He has been on the site for a few years. Our contract allows you to stay on the site for one year at a small cost. If no one orders you, then it costs $20 per year to stay on the site. We try to encourage men to register so we charge only a small fee to get listed.
Q: Now I was looking at the husbands available today and none of them looked like tv stars... In fact they were all pretty odd. Do you actually get orders for guys like, for example this guy from Libya who claims he would need to bring 5 close relatives with him to the new country?
Art: (after a pause)Now this situation is somewhat unique, I haven't seen many package deals involving relatives, but it happens. Now what you need to realize is that some women are interested in what you might call "fixer uppers."
Q: Seems like they could find plenty of those around here, why would they need you guys for that?
Art: Well, not always. Some of our customers are in remote locations and they might not have many options available to them.
Q: What if an arrangement doesn't work out for both parties?
Art: That happens. We are proud to offer the best money back guarantee in the business. Women who are not completely satisfied can get their money back. For example, if a bachelor claims to be something that he is not we will gladly return the women's investment, except shipping fees. However if the woman decides she wants someone who speaks English and she knew that the bachelor didn't speak English before she ordered, then there is very little we can offer.
Q: We had difficulty finding your competition. Is there any, and are you concerned about them?
Art: We are the number one spousal-order fulfillment service for women worldwide. Our competition is out there and as we continue our tremendous success there will certainly be more players in our market. Since we are a name brand and no one has the kind of market presence that we have, we expect to lead the industry for atleast the next few years.
Q: What's the future like for MailOrderHusbands.net?
Art: Most experts say that we will be huge. Demand is outpacing supply and we expect to raise some venture capital shortly. With that capital in place we will be doing what we can to streamline the ordering process. We expect that the ordering process will be much different in the future, but its difficult to speculate on it at this time.
Perhaps the future is bright for MailOrderHusbands.net. It will be interesting to watch.
- TRAN NGUYEN is a staff writer with Mail Order Brides Monthly
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About Mail Order Husbands, Inc.
Mail Order Husbands, Inc. has global operations in 157 countries. Its services range from spouse-ordering services for women to university diploma-ordering services as well as other services it prefers not to discuss. The MailOrderHusbands.net division was recently nominated by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for a prestigious Webby Award as one of the best services on the Internet. The nomination was later revoked upon further consideration.
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