The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-10-04
The Jobbing Interest.

An observanf Aabamian, who lately pass
ed through Charleston, has given hif i'm
pressions of our city in frank and sensible
letter to the Selma Times. He does justice
to the many features which render the City
by the Sea 80 attractive to strangers; he
praises our fine hotels and matchless stean-
ship lines; he is enthusiastic over our noble
water front and beautiful Battery, and he
paws deserved tribute to the activity and
enterprise which distinguish so many OF our
leading commercial houses. In noticing the
iobbers of Hayne and Meeting streets, how
ever he describes them as, apparently
ssplacidy satisfied with the small jobblng
sstrade which they do, and without energy or
"vitality enough to reach out and grasp that
(which legitimately belongs to them" And
in this connection, he adverts to the remark
able circumstance that the columns OF the
Charleston newspapers contain scarcely
single advertisement representing depart
ment of trade which should constitute so
large an element OF the prosperity OF the
city. This, surely, ought not to be. With
the start which she has in the commercial
race, Charleston should speedily become the
great iobbing mart OF the Southern seaboard.
But how can our jobbers expect to attain
this result if they persist in keeping their
light hid under bushel? II each OF our
iobbing houses would spend but one hun
dred dollars year IN judicious advertising
in their own papers, they could not fail to
reap tenfold return in the additional busi-
ness that would pour in from the cities and
towns of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
Tennessee and Florida, which our railroad
connections have now brought, as it were,
to our very doors. This, especially, is the
season when they should seek to make
known to the public what they are prepared
to offer to purchasers. Even the Oldest and
best established houses are in danger of
being forgotten or eclipsed if they overlook
the instrumentality of the press. In New
York, leading bankers and the most extern
sively known mercantile houses OF the city
keep their advertisements constantly before
the public As the New York Journal Of
Commerce truly says: "If house is not
s'well known, it should become so by liberal
advertising, and the better it becomes
'.known and the larger its business, and the
''more independent it would seem to be, the
''better still does it pay to advertise it. Ad-
'vertising is not only means OF success,
"but it is at once the evidence of it, and
guarantee OF its continuance" Those who
imagine their establishments so built up that
they can afford to ignore this auxiliary, do
not take into account the competitions in
business and Improvements in trade, which
will put the best and Oldest houses in dan
ger Of being lost sight of, unless they take
the pains to keep themselves known to the
public through the proper channels. The
fact is that the vast majority OF customers
throughout the South, at this time, do not
know that they can purchase their goods as
cheaply and on as advantageous terms, and
from stocks as extensive and suitable for the
Southern trade, in Charleston as in New
York. Are our jobbers resolved to keep
them in Ignorance OF the fact?