There is a book that addresses that very topic. It’s called “Mail-Order Mysteries, Real Stuff From Comic Book Ads” and it’s worth the price of admission!
Sure. Wells Fargo was formed by the founders of American Express in 1852 to serve California. The ancestor to UPS came along in 1907.
The issue was mostly that it was next to impossible to form truly national delivery services. UPS and Fed-Ex didn’t do so until the 1970s. A 1977 law that removed restrictions on all-cargo airplanes made the difference.
Rooh? Tell that to my mailman. Starting around this time of year, we start stacking up the catalogs we get in the mail until the end of the year. Last year it was about 6 foot tall.
My guess is that people read the catalog then order from their web site. There is still some appeal to being able to flip through a book.
And yeah we still get catalogs (95% of which go straight into recycling).
And in the 1600’s a single shipload mail-order of spices took 9-12 months.
It all depends on the availability of stock, the infrastructure for delivery, and the customers’ willingness to wait for their product.
For the original question… Remember that mail-order then was ACTUALLY mail-order.
So the time to process your order also included the time needed for YOUR order request to reach the supplier. Which could easily be a week or two. or three.
If you don’t want catalogs anymore, call the phone number for ordering and ask them to take your name off of the list. I pretty much never get catalogs these days.