Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-30
THE TRADE OUTLOOK.
An Era of Close Margins, and her-
chants and Manufacturers
CAN'T WAIT FOR TRADE TO CONE.
Hardware Moving More Freely, but No Ad-
vance in the Price List
THE NEED OF DIVERSIFIED PRODUCTS
CAN'T WAIT FOR TRADE TO CONE.
HE NEED OF DIVERSIFIED PRODUCTS
OFFICE OF The DISPATCH,
PIrTsBURG, TUESDAY, March 90.


The merchant or manufacturer who sue
ceeds in these times must keep posted as to
new methods of business and new inven-
tions. The methods in vogue o generation
ago, and which brought success to the men
of those days, are now obsolete, and the
business men of to-day who follow in the
footsteps of their fathers will soon be forced
to the rear. 1t is within the memory OF
the writer when the drummer was unknown.
Merchants waited for trade to come to them.
Now they must 60 for trade or be left
All our leading business firms are push
ing trade through men who carry samples to
everv village and country store, and they
who Micawber like wait for something to
turn up. and fail to push workers to the
front, are apt to find themselves without
customers
While we cannot report any improve
ment in prices of hardware, there is more
active movement in this line since the ad-
vent of spring weather. All along the line,
prices are down to hard pan, and with
continuance of present activity an upward
movement must come. Builders hardware
has been at its lowest point for years our
ing the past winter. The conflict last
contractors had a depressing effect all
through the year in all goods pertaining to
house building.
The outlook for building this season is
much better than it was year ago. Irere
is not now, as then, prospect OF strike
All signs point to a season OF activity In
building lines, and, as prices OF materials
are the lowest for years, future changes in
the price list are almost certain to be
toward higher level. Cut nails are now
iobbed at 81 40, and wire nails 81 50 per
keo AT these figures it is difficult to see
where the manufacturers profit comes in.
Pittsburg manufacturers have for years
left the field for the reason that there was
no money here in nail making. During the
war cut nails were sold as high as 81 per
keg. and at that price went off like hot
cakes.
Diversity as an Industrial Factor.
The Lss,,bsr Worker has this to say of one
of the great demands OF our times:
1t has become an economic necessity to
increase and diversity the specialties OF
the seed of hundred cents. Public enter
prise is generally in response to this indus
trial and commercial necessity.
The farmer finds financial anchorage In a
diversity of crops, and when one falls in
product or price he pays his taxes and buys
his boots from the increased value Of the
rest. The merchant adopts the same pro-
cedure, and finds his prosperity enhanced
by introducing variety into his business, and
in manufactures it is equally as necessary.
In the established staples of production elias
tacfty is law of success, and where the
man OF business ignores these flexible |
conditions he dries with the pea that |
fails to grow with the pod; in other words, |
his business stagnates and if sustained for a |
period at a loss of time and money, is newt |
ably destined to starve itself to death. |
There is no lack of such corpses in the finan- |
cial graveyard, and perhaps too many men |
living to-day, who, by being too conservative |
in their modes and methods, are simply post |
poning their funeral expenses. Hence it Is
necessary to multiply the lines of product |
in many of our industrial establishments, |
and thus avert the consequences of glutted \
markets or no demand.
TIE escape is in diversity. The class of
goods that make successful run one season |
is generally supplemented by reaction of
over-supply in the next. 1t is wise to recog-
nize the logic of events in this instance, and
keep pace with the march of progress and
public needs and in no one direction is the /
line of security and prosperity so accurately |
drawn as in the deployment of industrial /