Part 24 (2/2)
”If your big sales are on the cheaper goods, I would advise you to make a window display of half cheap and half good articles. Put a sign in the window to the effect that you have cheap articles to sell, and good ones to use. If you find your sales are mostly on the better-cla.s.s goods, I would advise you to start an educational advertising campaign, if you can afford it.”
”What is an educational advertising campaign?”
”It means advertising the better-cla.s.s goods and giving reasons and facts why they are better than the cheaper ones. Advertise that you have the low-priced articles, but, if they want the cheapest, the _best_ is the cheapest in the end. For instance, here is a ten-cent Dover egg-beater. I have one here, a gla.s.s affair, which sells at a dollar.
Actually, I am selling almost as many of the dollar egg-beaters as I do of the ten-cent ones.”
”Why?”
”Because I show them that the ten-cent egg-beaters cannot last very long--they can't expect a ten-cent article to do that--but this gla.s.s one will last indefinitely; it is more sanitary; the tinning on it is very heavy and it won't rust; it is cleaner, more serviceable, easier to work,” and then he gave me half a dozen more facts about that dollar egg-beater which I would never have thought of. ”If you were buying an egg-beater,” he continued with a smile, ”which would you buy now?”
”Buy the best one unquestionably, because I can see, after what you have told me, that the other isn't to be compared with it!”
”Exactly. And if you tell those facts to your trade, they will buy the better article in just the same way.”
”Then, if I am selling more of the better-cla.s.s goods than the cheaper ones, you would advise me to give Stigler the cheap business--give up the fight for it?”
”No,” he returned with a smile. ”Don't give up the fight, but fight him in a way that will hurt him most. That is, to educate the people away from the cheap goods.”
”I see! Kind o' put him out of business by killing the demand for his goods!”
”That's the idea, and it sounds easy if you say it quickly. Candidly,”
he said, ”I don't think it will hurt your business much. I wouldn't, personally, mind another hardware store opening next to me, particularly if they played the game according to Hoyle.”
”But Stigler won't do it!” I cried.
Betty agreed with Barlow that the thing to do was to try to develop the sale for the better-cla.s.s articles. ”For,” said she, ”if a woman buys a ten-cent egg-beater, you make three cents profit on it. If she buys a dollar egg-beater, you make over thirty cents profit on it, and the sale of one of those dollar articles is about equal to a dozen of the cheap ones.”
”By Jove, you're right!” I exclaimed. ”Perhaps Stigler's latest move to 'run me off my feet' may be the petard which will hoist him off his own; at any rate, as regards his five-and-ten-cent venture.”
Naturally, I could think of nothing but Stigler and five-and-ten-cent compet.i.tion, and finally I had an idea. This idea was awfully simple--unless it proved to be simply awful.
There were in Farmdale about a dozen stores to rent. I had no thought of renting them; but I was going to see the landlords of those places and see what they would charge me to rent the _windows_ for a week! and then I'd ask Barlow to let me hire his men for an evening to trim each of those windows with the better-cla.s.s kitchen goods, and then I'd put a big sign in each window something like this: ”If you want kitchen goods that wear, you'll find them at Dawson Black's.” I'd have smart little talking signs worked up and put on the goods, saying why they were better than cheap articles, and asking customers to come to my store at 32 Hill Street, and we would demonstrate why it paid to get the best.
”It pays to get the best.” That was to be the slogan, and I would print it on the bottom of all price tickets and talking signs!
I began to feel rather pleased that Stigler was starting that five-and-ten-cent store next to me! It seemed to have shaken me into action. I believed that, with a good window display in those empty stores for a week, I could work up a lot of business and get a lot of valuable publicity into the bargain.
When I mentioned the idea to Betty, she didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then she said very demurely:
”Dawson, you can have two more buckwheat cakes this morning.”
CHAPTER XXIII
TRADING STAMPS
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