A number of traveling men around a Sunday dinner-table, when they feel sure it is going to be a good dinner, is about as entertaining a company as any business man would care to be in. Jokes are necessarily plenty; stories fly about freely, but the man must be very thick-headed who does not pick up bits of information that he is the better for knowing.
At our table were represented knit goods, groceries, cutlery, hardware, crockery, and guns. When the the jokes had flowed about, and firms were being discussed, I heard the dry-goods man say: “Yes, sir, if I wanted to point out two of the longest-headed men who foresaw the coming change in doing business I would mention Butler Bros., of Chicago and New York. I used to sell them notions when they were in Boston, and they were nice men to do business with. It's harder to sell them to-day, for the buyer has grown hardened and cuts to the quick.” “They were the 5-cent counter men, were they not?”
“Yes, 5, 10, and 25 cent counter goods was their hobby, and it beat the great horn spoon to see how the thing spread. Every little cross-roads store had its 5 and 10 cent counters, and manufacturers and jobbers cut in prices to cater to it. Of course it could attract attention only by offering bargains. If a dealer put on his 25-cent counter only such goods as he had been selling at 25 cents, no one would have patronized it. The point in his mind was to attract attention by the bargains he could show. He could make a fair profit on the whole lay-out, but perhaps one-third of the stock was sold very close. Under ordinary circumstances a dealer paying 20 cents for an article would sell it at 30 to 40, but now it went on the 25-cent counter.”
“But it hurt regular trade.”
“Yes, it did to this extent, that it led men to dabble in things not in their own line. The dealer was apt to do the most cutting in such goods as were not in his regular line. He was inclined to be stiff on his own goods, but say he was a dry-goods dealer, it did not hurt him to cut on tin dippers, wash-basins, wooden-ware, etc. So when the hardware men followed with their cheap counters they were most inclined to cut on notions, and in fact the cheap-counter business has very much to do in the mixing up of trades and the demoralization of prices.”
“Don't you think it was the basis of department stores?”
“Yes, I do. Men saw that their small line of crockery, or tinware, or stationery sold well, and they increased the assortment, and finally led up to the 'department' idea.”
“How is this 5-cent counter business managed? I mean, how are the sales made?”
“Largely in assortments; for instance, if you pick up advertisements of the houses making a specialty of such goods, you will find that they offer assortments for a certain amount of money. They give the goods in detail; the dozen price of each article, the quantity sent in the assortment, the cost to the dealer, and the total retail price. Of course if the dealer is just starting out in such goods the entire assortment is what he wants, but if he is in it already the list enables him to buy just those things he needs. You'd be surprised to see the profit there is in these things, even in the present hard times. For instance, I saw an assortment of 5-cent goods consisting of 167 dozen articles which would retail, as you can figure, for $100.20; cost to the dealer, $60; profit, $40.20, or 67 per cent, on the investment.”
“Let's go into the 5-cent business,” said the cutlery man
“Better start a knife-stand on the street. Do you make goods for street-men?”
“No; they handle the cheapest Dutch trash.”
“Where do they get it?”
“In New York and Philadelphia. Seven or eight years ago some street fakir got hold of a showy two-blade penknife at about $2 a dozen. He took his stand on the street and they went off readily at 25 cents. The business seemed to spread all over the country like wild-fire, and especially during the fair season. Jobbers in the inland cities were cleaned out of stock they looked upon as dead and worthless. Of course, as soon as this demand was felt houses began to prepare to supply it. At first the fakirs were willing to pay $2 per dozen, but when new stocks came out cuts were made and the prices steadily went down.”
“What do they pay now?”
“These 25-cent tables do not cost, on an average, $1.50 per dozen knives. They get out a very handsome-looking two-blade knife, in bone or ebony handle, for $1.32 per dozen; a good-looking jack-knife for $1.40 to $1.75; pearl handle penknives for $1.75 to $2.”
“Are they worth a cent?”
“Not to cut with. They sell by the eye entirely; handles and blades are well finished, and they seem to be worth a good deal more than the price asked for them.”
“We had quite a run with some of these men on revolvers,” said the hardware man. “We had a wood handle 32-caliber that cost 85 cents—a good pistol. A seedy-looking fellow bought two or three hundred from us. His plan was to go into a shop, saloon, or store, and in a confidential way tell the boss or clerk that he was dead broke and would sell his $5 revolver for $2.50. At that time the average gunsmith was asking $3.50 to $5 for a common revolver, and he sold enough every day to make him good wages.”
“Thank goodness!” said the grocer, “we don't have these snide affairs in our line.”
“No, people have to give your goods away. It's samples of soap, samples of tobacco, samples of tea, samples of baking-powder, etc., etc., from morning till night. It's a mighty mean line that has to be given away.”
“This giving away,” said the crockery man, “has made a big hole in our business. Some one suddenly discovered that crockery would be a taking thing to help work off poor goods. Of course, the home jobber benefited by it for a very short time, and then the New York importers stepped in and took the cream. Baking-powder men, coffee-grinders, tea houses, and others sent out crockery, and people, got so much of it for nothing they had no excuse for buying any.”
“I doubt if it really hurts us much in the long run,” said the Meriden man. “Here was a baking-powder concern in Ohio that offered a set, consisting of fifty-one pieces, of silver-plated ware with every case of their own goods. If you had read their advertisement you would have been sure that Rogers never turned out any better goods than these they were giving away. But the fifty-one pieces cost them just $7.50! They used a good many thousand sets. The table caster was worth about 70 cents. You can imagine the quality! Now, I hold that in the long run cheap stuff will help good goods. People who have it will get disgusted with it, and will replace it with reliable ware, while if they had never had the trash they would not have had their own consent to buy the better goods.”
“Perhaps the most wonderful thing about business today,” was said, “is the amount of information given in circulars, price lists and advertisements. I can remember twenty years back where a price list simply gave you the briefest statement of the article, sometimes the size, but oftener not, and the price. Nowadays an ordinary list is a mine of information. I remember having reached the conclusion that one of the things particularly needed was a circular for the consumer about the way to strop and take care of a razor. I could not find a syllable on the subject in any English or American price list. I wrote to four manufacturers for points, but received the briefest of replies and no practical help. I sat down to write the circular. Did you gentlemen ever try your hand at such a job?”
No one had.
“Then I just want you to try it once, and you will believe what I tell you, that it will be about as tough a job as you ever undertook. I had been selling razors for ten or twelve years; I had talked with barbers, as you all have; I had heard customers talk; I had heard shrewd remarks and silly remarks; I had heard manufacturers occasionally drop a hint, and now I was to sit down and evolve out of my memory and experience a circular on the subject that would be of benefit to every one handling a razor.”
“How did you make out?”
“Well, perhaps the best answer to that is the fact that our firm sends out the circular to-day just as I wrote it eight years ago. But I started to speak of the large amount of information you find in circulars and advertising nowadays. Advertising is much more of a science than it was. Pick up a decent trade paper and the ordinary advertisement is full of shrewd points for those handling the goods, that cannot help being of immense value to retailers. And I can call your attention to this: these advertisements, these shrewd ones, are always written by men who have been traveling salesmen. Such men know the points that ought to be brought out.”
“Yes,” said the dry-goods man, “how is this, cut from the advertisement of a list of five-cent counter goods. Don't you believe the man who wrote this knew the soft side of a retailer?” And he read:
HOW TO DO IT.
Bundle up some of the unseasonable goods that are taking up valuable
counter space, and put them away on the shelves. By this economy of
space, and with the possible addition of a temporary counter, you
have gained room enough to admit of the introduction of a “5c, 10c or
25c counter.” The next thing to do is to send to some reliable jobber
for a bill of staple household sellers, with which you can mix
hundreds of articles from your own stock; then send out a little
circular (“dodger”) to the over-anxious inhabitants, telling them of
a few of the articles to be found on your “Cheap Counter,” and they
will respond as readily as though you had sent them free tickets to
the circus. It matters not that they have not seen one of these
counters before, there will be the same rush—the same scramble for
first choice—the same telling of friends about bargains bought; and
instead of sitting around waiting for the advent of spring, you will
have pocketed a nice profit from your cheap counter, besides having
worked off any amount of odds and ends that might have been in your
store five years, and would have remained five years longer had not
this modern wonder made an exit for them.
“That sounds mighty like Ed. Butler,” said the dry-goods man.
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