Mr. Sirle sold me a book on show-card writing which he said would give me some good ideas also on advertising generally.
I felt a bit worried on seeing four great cases delivered to Stigler's 5- and 10-cent store, especially when I found that they were Christmas novelties and cheap toys. All the stuff I had bought was of the better quality. I hoped we wouldn't get stung with the venture, for it looked as if the toy business was goingto be overdone in the town. The department store was already advertising that they'd have a children's fairyland for the whole of December. Traglio was running a lot of games, jigsaw puzzles and things of that kind. Funny thing, the year before the department store had been about the only one that did anything in toys, and they hadn't done very much. Now this year there were seven of us pushing toys and it looked as if some one was going to get left.
One day, Miriam Rooney, one of Mrs. Sturtevant's maids, came into the store and said she wanted to get some kitchen goods for her mistress. I asked her for a written order for the goods, in accordance with instructions from Mrs. Sturtevant, and she drew out a little book, printed especially for the purpose, in which the blanks were numbered. She slipped in a sheet of carbon for the copy, and was about to fill out the order, when she said, with a peculiar look on her face:
"I—I suppose you'll charge it up the same way as Mr. Stigler used to?"
The moment she said it, I felt there was something wrong. I suppose I was prejudiced against that man, and every time I heard his name I saw red. Stigler had been trying in every way he could to hurt me. He was all the time cutting prices, and I had lost quite a lot of business because of my refusal to reduce my prices when customers came and told me they could buy cheaper at Stigler's. I used to do so at first, until Old Barlow advised me not to.
"Don't you think it is quite possible," he had said, "that your friend Stigler is sending some one into your store to see how much they can beat you down?"
I asked what good that would do him.
"Suppose a woman came in for a fifty-cent article and, by telling you she could get it from Stigler for forty cents, you were induced to let down the price, and not only sell it to her for that price, but make that the regular price on the article?"
Well, I had never done that, although I had occasionally let down the price on some individual article, but since then I had adopted the strictly one-price policy.
When Miriam Rooney asked me if I would charge it up the same way as Stigler, I was on my guard at once. "I don't know what Stigler does at all," I said, with a smile.
"Well," said Miriam hesitatingly, "you see, Mr. Black, we use a lot of things up to the big house"—Mrs. Sturtevant was the wife of a very wealthy manufacturer in the neighborhood and kept up a large establishment—"and you might want to make it worth our while for us to buy from you. Mrs. Sturtevant said she'd as soon we'd buy from you as anywhere else."
"In other words, you want a rake-off—is that it?"
"Well," she said, evidently not liking the brutally frank way I put it, "it ought to be worth something to you to get all the business of the big house, hadn't it?"
"No," I said, desiring to get rid of the subject in the easiest way, "I can't afford to do so at the price I sell my goods, and there would be no benefit to me in doing business without a profit, would there?"
"Oh, you're soft," she said. "It needn't cost you anything."
I knew well enough what she meant. "But thatwould be making Mrs. Sturtevant pay more for the goods than they are worth."
"What d' you care, so long as she pays it?"
"I want Mrs. Sturtevant's business, young woman, but I'm hanged if I'm going to do any grafting to get it!"
"Keep your old things, then! If you're a fool, Stigler isn't!" And with that she bounced out of the store.
Larsen wanted to telephone Mrs. Sturtevant and tell her all about it, but I said we'd never had much business from her and I'd hate, just before Christmas, to cause a girl to lose her job. "Besides," I said, "she'd deny it, of course."
I told Betty about it when I got home. All she did was to come over and give me a kiss and say, "I'm glad, boy dear, you are strong enough to do business honestly."
A few days later, Mrs. Sturtevant came into the store and bought quite a number of things. When she was through, she said to me:
"Didn't one of my maids come in here yesterday?"
"Yes, Mrs. Sturtevant."
"Why didn't she buy?"
"I couldn't satisfy her," I said with a smile.
"How do you mean, you couldn't satisfy her?" persisted Mrs. Sturtevant.
"Why, we—we couldn't agree on prices!"
"You are a very foolish young man!" I looked at her blankly—I didn't know what she meant. "If you hadn't a mother to look after you, I don't know what you would do!"
"What do you—I don't quite follow you," I smiled.
"I'll tell you, Mr. Black. Your mother and I, of course, know each other, and she paid me a call a few days ago; and, while talking, she mentioned that you refused to sell me some goods because you would have to add a premium to the price."—Betty must have told mother!—"I have suspected that I have been paying too much for my goods, and, when your mother told me that, I was certain of it. Besides, I suspected something when Miriam said she couldn't find the things we wanted here, and she had to go to Stigler's, when I asked her why she didn't buy them of you."
"Don't worry. I haven't dismissed the girl; but I have given her a good talking to."
If you knew Mrs. Sturtevant, you would know that she could give anybody a good talking-to. "But I do know I have paid prices that were too high," she continued, "because I asked a friend to go into Mr. Stigler's store and buy some things, and I checked those with the prices which had been charged me."
"And they were—?"
"Yes, about fifteen per cent. more."
"Hum!"
"Yes, exactly. I said something more vigorous than that, though, for your competitor first of all added ten per cent. for the maid and then apparently another five per cent. for himself! I have been over there and told him that I have instructed my help never to buy anything from him again, and that, if they do, I shall positively refuse to pay for it."
I wondered if other retail merchants had just these same little problems to solve that I had. I wondered if, in a case like this one, they would have ever thought of suggesting to their customers that they get somefriends to buy an article or two occasionally, and compare the prices with those they were charged. . . . I knew the episode wouldn't make Stigler love me any more, for the Sturtevant business amounted to quite a lot. That one order that Miriam Rooney had bought of Stigler had been eighteen dollars' worth.
About this time Betty was taken sick, so that I used to go into the Élite Restaurant for my lunches. This was a place frequented by a number of business men. Stigler was in there one day when I got in, talking with some of the people who regularly dined there. If ours wasn't a dry town, I should have said that Stigler had been drinking; for, the minute he saw me, he flushed, and an ugly expression came into his face.
"There he is," he cried to his friends, pointing at me, and he spoke in a voice loud enough for me and everybody else in the place to hear. "There he is! A pretty little chap he is—oh, so nice that he is!—to stab his competitor in the back. D—d young whelp!" he saidtohis friends, butatme. "What do yer think of a feller that goes behind yer back to hurt yer character? I'd sooner a feller'd come out in the open and fight. D—d character assassin!"
His friends looked rather embarrassed. I sat down at the table, apparently not paying the least attention to him, but my head was in a whirl. Then I gave my order to Kitty. I suppose Kitty had another name, but everybody knew her as Kitty. She was a pretty little Irish girl, who had come to our town about five years ago, nobody knew from where. Old Collier, the big, fat, kindly old Frenchman who ran the place, at oncehad given her a job. He was too big-hearted to inquire why she came by herself and why her eyes showed signs of sleeplessness and weeping. He not only gave her a job, but, in a few weeks, had taken her into the family. She at first became known jokingly as Kitty Collier, and soon everybody thought of her by that name. She thought the whole universe revolved around genial old Pierre, who really regarded her as he would his own daughter.
When Kitty first came into the town Betty at once had become her friend; and in fact Betty had been quite severely criticized for making a friend of a girl whose character was unknown. Kitty thought a lot of Betty and, in consequence, of me also.
"I'll bring ye some nice steak," said Kitty with her pretty brogue, and unobtrusively patted my back. She sensed the unhappy position I was in.
When she came back, Stigler was saying in a loud voice: "There are some people—and their name ain't White, either—that ought to be ridden out o' town!"
Crash! Kitty had dropped her plate, and, to the surprise of every one—especially to me,—she walked over to where Stigler was sitting, gave his hair a vigorous pull, and said:
"Arrah, now, ye dir-rty blackguard, ye're not a gintleman yerself, an' ye doan't know one, if ye see one. Mr. Black, there, is too much of gintleman to sile his hands on the likes o' you, butI'm not!" and with that she gave him a resounding box on the ear.
Stigler jumped up with an oath, while old Pierre ran from behind the counter; Stigler, black with rage, Pierre almost crying with vexation.
Stigler caught Kitty by the arm and angrily swung her around, and then—I forgot myself. I rushed at him and caught him fairly under the jaw. He fell back among the tables; and then some people caught hold of us, and held us both back. Finally Stigler walked out of the restaurant, without another word, while I sat down at the table to eat my steak; but I was trembling all over with the excitement and could eat nothing.
I felt that there was nothing I wouldn't do to be able to run Stigler out of the town. Why he should be so bitter against me I didn't know, unless it was that my business was slowly growing. Of course he had been fond of Betty, but surely he was all over that.
Old Barlow came over to the store, having heard of the fracas.
"Look here, Black," he said, "I want you to forget that fracas. Forget Stigler as much as you can. If you see him, don't speak to him; but just drive ahead and 'saw wood.' If he likes to waste his energies in thinking up ways of getting revenge, why, let him do so. Just keep your attention on your business and you'll have a successful business when he is forgotten. No man can build a successful business on spite. No man can increase his bank account while he's trying to make his business a weapon to secure revenge against some one else. I have seen so many business men spoil themselves because they began to worry over competition, and, instead of just seeing how they could improve their methods of business they spent good time in seeing how they could fight one individual competitor. Success to-day isn't made by downing the other fellow, but by building up one's own efficiency inbusiness methods. There's room for you and Stigler and me in this town—in fact," he said with a smile, "we are going to have a little more competition yet."
"Where?" I asked, surprised.
"In Macey Street."
Macey Street was a busy little street connecting High and Main.
"Who is it?"
"I don't know; but I understand it's one of a chain of stores."
"What kind of goods are they going to handle?"
"Kitchen goods, same as you."
"H'm," I said with a grin, "I guess I'll have to go into the agricultural implements business and compete with you!"
"Go to it! Good luck to you!" But he knew that I couldn't do that, for I hadn't the money to put in the necessary stock; and, besides, Mr. Barlow had had that business for years.
When I told the Mater about it, she replied: "It seems to me unreasonable to say that, because Mr. Barlow has had that business for years, you should avoid it; but I really hope you won't try for it, because Mr. Barlow is such a good friend of yours, and his friendship and the help which he has given you is worth more to you than what you might earn from selling those goods. If you did, he might retaliate and sell electrical goods, and, you know, you are getting quite a name for those."
It was a fact; wewereselling quite a lot of electrical goods—indeed, I believed we were going to build up a very substantial business in them before long. I was thinking of making a special department of them, andhiring a girl to be in charge of it. I knew that many people would think it funny to have a girl in a hardware store, but, just the same, I had a hunch that a girl could handle that kind of goods better than a man.
Betty had become seriously ill. The doctor said she ought to go South until spring, and then take a sea voyage. I told him I didn't know where the money was coming from to do it; but the Mater reminded me that Aunt Hannah lived in Birmingham. The doctor said that would be better than up here for the time being, so the Mater wrote at once to Aunt Hannah to see if Betty could go and stay with her for a while. I would shut up the house and live with the Mater until Betty came back.
I had not yet been able to pay all the monthly bills. I had bought those toys in New York on a ten-day cash basis, so I was hard up. When I went to the bank to try to borrow $500.00 Blickens had turned me down. He had said: "You're right in the busiest time of the year now. A few days should give you all the money you need. If you can't carry yourself without the aid of the bank now, you never can."
Then, to cap the whole thing, I had received a letter from Barrington saying he'd like me to pay that $1,250.00 note, secured by a mortgage on my farm. I went to his office, and he said he wanted the thing closed up right away. It was a demand note, because, when we fixed it up, Barrington had said he wanted it to run an indeterminate time. I had expected hewould carry it indefinitely, but there it was—he said he had a sudden call for the money and wanted me to pay it off.
I had caught a very bad cold, and if I had not been boss I'd have taken a good vacation. One day I went to the store, but had to come home early, I felt so sick. Jones, too, was out the same day—worse luck. His mother had called up in the morning, saying he had caught a bit of a cold, and she thought it would be much better for him to stay home till he was well. I almost wished I were a clerk for a little while, then perhaps I could stay at home and get a rest. I really felt very ill. My head was splitting.
I wonder if clerks realize how often the Boss has to work when he feels sick? Most bosses, I guess, have that feeling of responsibility for the business and the employees that I always have had, and that keeps them working when they'd be at home if they didn't have that responsibility. I remember one of the fellows who worked with me at Barlow's used to complain that Barlow got all the profit, while we got all the work—and I agreed with him at the time, poor fool that I was. We never thought that Barlow had all his money invested in the business that was providing us with a certain living. We never stopped to think that we were sure to get our money every week, whatever happened, but that Barlow had to take a chance on anything that was left. We never thought about the worry and responsibility.
I don't want to forget the workers' side of a business deal, but I never realized so much as I did then how unjust most employees are to their boss. I know many bosses are unjust to their employees and perhaps the boss is principally to blame for it, but just take my case: There was Jones threatened with a cold, so he stayed home when he could have been working just as well as not. He knew he was going to get his money on Saturday, anyway. But I was so sick I could hardly think logically; and I had to go down to the store and work.
Stigler had put on a big sale of Christmas novelties. He had bought a lot of indoor parlor games. I hadn't bought any of those; and he had a line of calendars and Christmas cards. I had never thought of putting them in. The drug store had a big stock of them, though.
Stigler was advertising extensively and was pretty busy at both the five-and-ten-cent store and at the hardware store opposite. He seemed to be doing more business than usual. Since we had had the scrap in the Élite Restaurant he had been quite polite, but somehow I feared him more than ever before. He seemed to have a cold hatred of me, and he was always going out of his way to spoil any adventure in special sales that I made.
Toys had been going very slowly with me. I had wanted to get Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Agency to write up some ads on toys for me, but he was in the hospital, being operated on for appendicitis. I didn't know what to do.
As soon as she received the Mater's letter Aunt Hannah had telegraphed, saying she'd be delighted to have Betty visit her, and asking if I couldn't come as well. Of course I could not go, but the doctor said that Betty was well enough to travel, so it was decided that the Mater should go down with her to stay for a week orso while I looked after the house. I planned to have all my meals at the Élite Restaurant.
The day after they left I was so ill that I had to spend the whole day in the house. Larsen came around at lunch time and said he'd written up an ad on toys and had put it in the papers.
"We can't afford any money for ads," I said peevishly.
"Done now, Boss, anyhow. Don't you worry—we had quite a good day yesterday. Going to have another one to-day. You stay right in bed until you are well. We'll look after things there."
Larsen was a good sort. I saw his ad in the paper. It read like this:
SOMETHING THAT MOVESEvery youngster likes a toy that moves. Get him one for Christmas! We have a large variety of moving and other Christmas toys. They are toys that will fascinate the youngster. They are strongly built toys, too, that will last.Railroads, 50¢ to $4.00Constructor outfits, 25¢ to $6.00Bamboo, the wonderful tumbling clown, 50¢Automobiles, moving animals, juvenile tool outfits—hundreds of other things the children will like.Bring the youngsters in and let them enjoy the fun of our toy bazaar.
SOMETHING THAT MOVES
Every youngster likes a toy that moves. Get him one for Christmas! We have a large variety of moving and other Christmas toys. They are toys that will fascinate the youngster. They are strongly built toys, too, that will last.
Railroads, 50¢ to $4.00Constructor outfits, 25¢ to $6.00Bamboo, the wonderful tumbling clown, 50¢
Automobiles, moving animals, juvenile tool outfits—hundreds of other things the children will like.
Bring the youngsters in and let them enjoy the fun of our toy bazaar.
Larsen told me that he had cleared away two long tables, placed them together, covered them with cheap oil cloth, and filled them up with toys, arranged in such a way that they could all be worked and handled easily.
"I have Jimmie keeping 'em going all the time. He is working harder, playing with them things, than he ever did in his life," he said, with a chuckle.
I couldn't help smiling at Larsen's cheeriness. He certainly had been different since we had had that dinner at home and had made Mrs. Larsen realize that I was looking after his interests as well as my own.
I thought Larsen had done quite well on that ad, although there were some things in it that I'd have changed.
He said that a lot of toys had been sold because he had them working. I had intended to do something of that kind myself, only I had felt too sick to attend to it. I remembered the big success we had had with electrical appliances when we demonstrated them in actual use.
There were only six days to Christmas! Still, if we had a good week we ought to clear those toys out.
Larsen told me Stigler's five-and-ten-cent store was packed. He thought it was a good thing for us.
"Lots of folks go there," he said, "for 5- and 10-cent things. We're next door. They come to us for better stuff."
Perhaps there was something in that, after all.
The New England Hardware Company were to open their store on Macey Street on January one. I knew because I had received the following letter from them, which evidently they had sent to every house in town:
Dear Sir:The New England Hardware Company open their Farmdale Store January 1, at 62 Macey Street. This store will be in charge of Mr. Roger Burns, who for many years was in charge of the kitchen goods department at the Bon Marche.We earnestly solicit your patronage at our new store—not because by so doing you will help Mr. Burns (who has an interest in the profits of the company) but because you will get the best in kitchen hardware at cut-rate prices.You will readily appreciate that an organization like ours can give you greater value than the usual hardware store, where the goods are bought in small lots by the proprietor or manager, who has many other duties to attend to. Our buyers are experts, who devote all their time to the study and search of markets; buying in tremendous quantities (for twenty-seven stores), and paying spot cash. We are thus able to sell merchandise for less than usual prices.Mr. Burns hopes to meet all his friends on the opening day, January one. He has a surprise gift for every visitor to the store on that day.Respectfully yours,New England Hardware Company.
Dear Sir:
The New England Hardware Company open their Farmdale Store January 1, at 62 Macey Street. This store will be in charge of Mr. Roger Burns, who for many years was in charge of the kitchen goods department at the Bon Marche.
We earnestly solicit your patronage at our new store—not because by so doing you will help Mr. Burns (who has an interest in the profits of the company) but because you will get the best in kitchen hardware at cut-rate prices.
You will readily appreciate that an organization like ours can give you greater value than the usual hardware store, where the goods are bought in small lots by the proprietor or manager, who has many other duties to attend to. Our buyers are experts, who devote all their time to the study and search of markets; buying in tremendous quantities (for twenty-seven stores), and paying spot cash. We are thus able to sell merchandise for less than usual prices.
Mr. Burns hopes to meet all his friends on the opening day, January one. He has a surprise gift for every visitor to the store on that day.
Respectfully yours,New England Hardware Company.
That had struck me as being a pretty good letter. It certainly was a clever idea to get Burns as their manager because he was very popular in the town. When the Bon Marche failed he had come to me, but, of course, I couldn't use him. Then he had told me that the chain-store people had made him an offer, and he went to work in their Hartford store. At that time he didn't say anything about the possibility of coming back to Farmdale as manager of a store for them. I don't think, as a matter of fact, that he had any idea that they were going to open a new store. Burns was a bully good fellow, and I honestly hoped he'd be successful, although I hoped the new store would not hurt us much. . . .
The day after I received the circular letter I had a telephone call from Burns. He had come into town to take charge of getting the new store ready. We made an appointment to have Christmas dinner together and he promised to tell me how his firm had gone about opening the new store in Farmdale.
I had been doing a little figuring, and I didn't know whether we'd do our $30,000 in the fiscal year or not. Up to the end of November—that is for six months—our business had amounted to $13,872.00, $1,128.00 below our quota. However, in the last two days we had taken in $345.00 and I had been able to pay off the last few of our monthly accounts. Barrington, too, had told me he'd wait until the first of the year; but insisted that I tell him then what I could do.
I wished I could increase the business a little bit more, for my expenses were still high, and we were all of us feeling fagged through being under-staffed. We could well have done with another clerk; but we justcouldn't afford it. However, while Betty was away I could work day and night, if necessary, and then, perhaps, by the time she got back, we'd have things in such shape that I could afford another clerk.
As arranged, I had Christmas dinner with Roger Burns at his boarding-house.
After dinner Roger told me some of the methods that the New England Hardware Company used in locating stores and carrying on their business.
"You know, Jackdaw," said Roger (when I was at school the boys all called me Jackdaw; one reason I suppose was that I was so dark and my first name was Dawson), "it is some months since the New England Hardware people hired me and sent me to Hartford as assistant in their store there. After I had been with them for a month, they shifted me to their Providence store for a month as assistant manager. From there I was sent out as traveling inspector, and spent two months in visiting each of the stores and spending a day or two at each one. Then I was called to New York—as you know, they have their head office there—and was coached in methods of handling the records which they required store managers to send in to the office.
"Not only did they tell me what records had to be made out, and how they had to be made out, but they showed me what happened to them when they reached the New York office, and also explained very clearly the need for all those records.
"I learned more about business, Jackdaw, in those six months than I ever knew before. They didn't just tell me what to do, but they told me why it had to be done. Every question that I asked them about running a store they answered for me. No trouble seemed too great for them to take, if it was going to help me to understand how they did business. I thought they were telling me altogether too much; they were telling the secrets of the conduct of the business; but Mr. Marcosson (he's a weird combination—a Scotchman with a sense of humor)—Mr. Marcosson is the general sales manager—he said that I couldn't be any use to them, unless I knew all about the business; what the goods would cost me in the store, how much profit I ought to make, how much turn-over I ought to get, and Oh! it would take me a month to tell you all the facts they gave me.
"One thing has stuck out clearly in my mind from this training, and that is, that I can do my work for them much better than would have been possible if I had been working under an ordinary store proprietor. I knowwhythings should be done. There's real horse sense at the back of every move they take. They don't guess at things. They find out. If you were to ask me what accounts for the big success of chain-store organizations I should say that it is that the chain-store organizationknowswhat it is doing, while the ordinary retailerguessesat what he is doing. For instance, they are looking for towns for two men who are going through the same training that I went through—"
"Do you mean to tell me, Roger," I broke in, "that they spent six months' time in training you, when you might leave them at any minute?"
"H'm, h'm," said Roger, "that's a fact. Marcosson said that, as soon as any one could do better for me than they could, they expected me to leave. Andit is a fact that, out of all the managers they have had, only three of them have left. Of course, it's a fairly young organization—been in existence only about five or six years; but the employees are treated so well that they rarely want to leave.
"You know I get an interest in the profits the store makes—"
And that reminded me, I hadn't yet worked out that profit-sharing plan for my people! It had been no easy job.
"Another thing," continued Roger, "Marcosson said that impressed me very much. 'We are going to give you a share in the profits, Mr. Burns,' he said, 'because we believe it is due you.' You know, Jackdaw, Marcosson is the kind of man you can speak right out to—not the kind of man you get scared of at all; so I said to him: 'I've heard many people say that profit-sharing isn't a success.' 'So far as we are concerned, it is,' he said. 'Most retailers who go into profit-sharing plans go into them with but a very slight study of the problem. They don't think the thing through to a logical conclusion, and they put into operation some half-baked plan which, of course, does not work out right, and then, instead of blaming the plan they damn the policy as a whole! Profit-sharing is necessary in modern retail business; but its operation must be planned in a common-sense way to be successful. One might just as well complain of the principles of arithmetic because one cannot do a sum correctly!'
"But let me get back to my story of how we came here," said Roger, lighting a fresh cigar. . . .
While he was talking, I had been looking at Roger,and comparing him to the old Roger Burns I had known a year or so ago. He had grown bigger—not in size, you understand, but he was a bigger man—he had a personality which he never had had before. He had more confidence in himself, and I attributed this to the fact that he was sure of what he was about. He knew exactly what was expected of him—he had been trained thoroughly to do it, and that had given him a confidence which I was sure will make for his success in Farmdale. Frankly, I felt that, as a competitor, he was going to be a much keener one than Stigler ever had been.
"The New England Hardware Company," continued Roger, "has money enough to open as many stores as it wishes; but it can open stores only as quickly as it can get men. So the first thing it seeks is a man who is likely to make a good manager, then it looks for a location in which to place him."
"Is that how all chain-store organizations do?" I asked.
"No," replied Roger. "Some of them look around for towns where the merchants are not on to their jobs. That's the way some of the big drug store chains in particular operate. They go around to the towns where the existing drug-store proprietors are dead, and don't know it, and where there is practically no competition for them, and that's where they open the store.
"My people go at it a little differently. Where possible, however, they try to open a store with a manager who is known in the location."
"Do they ever buy existing stores and make them part of the chain?"
"No, although some chain organizations do that."
"How do they pick out the towns to locate in?"
"When they look for a town in which to locate a store, they want to know a lot of facts about it. They want to know, for example, whether the town covers a large area or not. They find out if the houses are scattered, or if the dwellings are concentrated in a small area. They like a town that is a trading center for neighboring towns, because they can draw from all these neighboring towns as well as from their own local trade. If it's a manufacturing town, they want to know whether the factories make such goods as will tend to make the labor problem steady. For instance, they wouldn't want to locate in a town which was always having labor troubles, or where there were periods where the factories have to close down because they manufacture seasonal goods. In other words, they want a town which has a regular, steady trade all the year.
"A good residential town, of course, is splendid for them. When they go to a manufacturing town they pick out, wherever possible, a town which has a diversified line of manufactories, instead of one which is devoted to one line of industry. You see, that helps to avoid slack times, because if one line is slack the other is inclined to be busy. See my point?
"Then they find out how many stores in their line are in the town, and if they look alive and up to date."
"Did you think we were a dead lot?" I asked.
"Sorry you asked me that," said Roger with a grin. "They did. Yes, they think that old Barlow has the only real store in the town."
"And me and Stigler?" I said interestedly, even if ungrammatically.
"Well, they think Stigler is a joke, and that you are—" he hesitated for a word—"inexperienced!"
"So they think that Barlow,—old-fashioned, plug-along Barlow—is the only real competitor in the town?"
"Yes. You see, Barlow does twice as much trade as you and Stigler put together, and then some."
I had never realized before that Barlow was so much a bigger man than I was, but the more I thought of it the more I believed that the chain-store people had sized up the situation correctly.
"Then," continued Roger, "they find out where the people live; if they own their own houses, or if they rent them. Obviously, a town where people own their own homes is going to offer a more regular and permanent trade than one where every one lives in rented houses. Then they want to find out how and when the great number of employees in the manufacturing plants are paid. They want to know this so that they can offer special sale goods and such-like on the day that the people get the money."
That was a new one on me. I had never thought of that before.
"Everybody pays on Saturdays, don't they?" I asked.
"Everybody used to, but it is by no means uncommon, now, for factories to pay the help on Thursday and Friday.
"When they've studied this question, they next study the business streets to learn which are the most important.
"The most important to them does not necessarily mean the main street of the town, but the one which offers the greatest number of passersby, who are likely to be customers. For instance, they want to know where the people congregate in the streets in the evening. Do they go past the drug store and past the most popular movie theater? Do the men go through the town on the way home, or can they get home without going through the shopping section?
"Now, some concerns, such as the big chain cigar store people, plan to get the corner which has the greatest number of people passing it. They have tellers stand outside various corners and count the number of people going each way during various hours of the day. But our people do differently," said Roger, with a pride that made me realize that the instruction they had given him had certainly developed in him absolute confidence in his people. "We try to get stores with a reasonable rent just off the main thoroughfares, but so located that we catch as many passersby as possible.
"Now, we are opening in Macey Street, although High and Main are unquestionably our two main thoroughfares here."
Macey Street is a narrow street running from the post-office, which is on Main Street, facing Macey, and connecting with High. On High Street is the theater and two of the moving-picture houses. The railroad station, also, is on High, a little way from Macey.
"Now, on Main Street," said Roger, "are all our business and professional men. Their best way to get home is down Macey into High, either to the depotor to the trolley junction in front of the depot. Thus you see we catch the bulk of the people coming from Main to High and from High to Main. The rent is even less than you pay," he said with a smile, "and yet we have a location which is several times better than yours."
I felt as if I wanted to kick myself when he said that. If I had only known that. I had bought the store, but I had never even thought that I might have gotten a better location than I had.
"Then the next thing we have to consider," said Roger, "is whether or not we are on the right side of the street. Now, you may or may not know it, but the right side of the street is the one which has the greatest amount of shade in the summer. You see, in the heat of the summer, people prefer to walk in the shade, and consequently they take the shady side of the street. In the winter, if there is any snow, it makes the sunny side of the street sloppy, so that people still walk on the shady side."
"H'm. Stigler's got one over me, then, because he's on the shady side of the road."
"Yes, we reckoned that Stigler had a bit better location than you had. But he evidently does not know it, else he wouldn't have wasted that money opening the five-and-ten-cent store next door to you."
"He's doing a big business," I said ruefully.
"Wait till after Christmas. The Christmas season is a big time for five-and-ten-cent stores such as his. But wait until February, and he'll 'find it's a rocky road to Dublin.'"
I certainly felt good to hear that. Roger grinned.
"Tell you, old man," he said, stretching over andputting his hand on my knee, "I don't like Stigler, and I'd like to go for his scalp, only my company insists that I'm here to sell goods to the people, and not to compete with any one else. But, if the time ever comes that you can get a bit better location than you have, do so. You see, old man, the bulk of your people have to go to the store. You don't get a great amount of people passing it naturally.
"Another reason we chose this location is that we are just between you and Barlow."
"How is that any help?"
"Well, it helps in this way. Some one passing your store suddenly remembers that she wants something—a saucepan, let us say. She has already walked by your store and doesn't bother to turn back. A little later on she comes to my store. I get the benefit of the suggestions which occur to people as they pass your store."
I could hardly believe that. It sounded too much like—oh, quackery; and I told Roger so.
"All right, old man," he said with a smile. "But have you ever noticed when you go to a big city that you will find a man at one corner selling apples and then there is a man on the next corner doing the same thing. You will notice how people pass the first one, then take a few seconds to think it over, or the suggestion is just a little one, and it is strengthened when they come to the second stand. The same thing applies to a group of stores. As an example of this: In Jacksonville, Fla., there are not less than six hardware stores located in one block. That town of sixty thousand people has several good business streets, but this group of stores has become known as 'The Hardware Center' and people gravitate there for anything they want in the hardware line. Those stores benefit by being together. The same thing applies in a smaller way to a street of stores. One store by itself doesn't impel the buying instinct, but a street of stores puts the thought of buying into the minds of people passing them."
Well, that certainly was mighty interesting. Roger silently smoked for some minutes. I thought he had finished his story, but there was more.
"Then, when we had got the store," he said, "we found there were two little steps leading to it. We had these removed, and put in a slope from the street to the floor. It is easier for people to walk up a slope than up two steps. Then, if you notice, we have had the windows altered. There were two panes in each window. We have had them taken out and one big glass put in each one. Then we have had a new lighting system put in. And then you notice that the outside of the store has been painted an olive green. That is the distinctive color of our stores, and also is a color which harmonizes with our goods.
"Now, we have given a lot of care to lighting and to the outside appearance of the store. We have some good display counters inside the store, but we have only cheap deal fixtures. We haven't spent much money on fixtures, because they have not quick-asset value."
"What in the name of thunder is that?"
"Well, a quick-asset value is the value that an article will fetch at a forced sale, and it is the policy of the company to invest in nothing that will deteriorate as rapidly as expensive fixtures do."
"It certainly is wonderful," I said. "They seem to have thought of everything, haven't they?"
"Yes, indeed; even to the point that we have a lease on the store with a clause in it that, if we give it up, it is not to be rented for another hardware business for at least twelve months after the expiration of our lease."
"Did they stand for that?"
"You bet they did."
"What's the idea?"
"Well, we believe we have the best location, but we are not sure. Now, if we find in two or three years' time that we haven't got the location, we will get a better one. In that case, we are not going to make it possible for some one to take that same location and scoop up our business, because another hardware store, coming in there, would reap the benefit of all the publicity we gave to the store. Do you see the point?"
I saw the point all right. That conversation with Roger Burns was a revelation to me. If only I had given the same thought and care to getting a store how much better off I'd have been!
Another thing I realized from Roger's talk. They plugged ahead steadily. They didn't leave anything undone. They didn't make any false moves; while I—I was almost a joke!
We had been increasing our sales on men's toilet articles, and were selling anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 worth of those goods a week. Mind you, not razors, but soap, and talcum powder, and such-like.
Larsen had been studying a book on window trimming, and had learned that there were two ways of trimming windows. One way was to put in a lot of goods that were associated with each other, and another was to put in just one class of goods to make a forceful appeal. So, Larsen conceived the idea of a special window trim, using the second idea. We had been in the habit of mixing a number of different kinds of goods in our window. His idea was just the opposite.
The display was to be of the Middle's razor, which I sold exclusively in our town, and which I thought was the best of all the dollar razors. Well, Larsen started to tell me his idea; but I told him to go ahead and work it out in his own way.
He got some cheap, dark-blue cloth, and hung it in a semi-circle in the window from top to bottom. Then he covered the floor of the window with the same material. He then got a piece of cardboard and bent it into the shape of a cone about 2 ft. 6 in. at the base, and not above half an inch at the top. This he alsocovered with the same cloth, placing it in the center of the window. About a foot above the cone he hung a single electric bulb, with a shade over it made of cardboard, and again covered with the cloth. The light was therefore directed full on the top of the cone, and the bulb itself was out of sight. There was no other light in the window. On the apex of the cone he placed one Middle's razor—not in the box—oh, no. He took the razor out of the box, fitted a blade into it and rested it on the top of the cone. On the floor, resting against the cone, was a card which read as follows: