Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1909-10-30

We spend on newspaper advertising
more than twice over what all our
competitors spend.
find as ready response to our
advertising in London as would come
in Chicago or New York or any other
large American city.
People will read our ads and If the
merchandise is what they want they
will buy it. Human nature is the
same the world over Local conditions
vary with the locality, but people don't
vary much-not as an average. You
can appeal to the Londoner when you
get his attention with just the same
things that you appeal to the Chi
cagoan. It may be harder to get his
attention, but when you do your mer-
chandise opportunities are acted on in
much the same way. | have proved
this to myself Before I opened sin
London many people told me that Lon
doners did not know and did not care
about values; that they wouldn't
change to a new particularly
foreign" shop-simply to get shil-
ling article for three-pence less. The
minute we cut prices on an article of
standard quality, goods sell rapidly.
Although no department stores ad-
vertised in the newspapers before our
coming, our advertising has been very
effective. When we advertise limit
ed number of goods there is always ali
early rush of buyers and the stock is
usually sold out by IL o'clock or noon
We've done another thing we were
told we couldn't do. We've had
american" window displays and kept
them brilliantly lighted at night. The
other London shops don't do this. they
have great iron shutters outside their
windows and pull these down every aft
ernoon at the close of business. 1t
is the survival Of the old days when it
wasn't safe to leave windows unpro-
tected. Everybody does it, and we
were told we'd have to; that our being
different would go against the grain
with Londoners. Just the opposite
has, however, been the result of our
being different The sidewalks in
front of our windows are thronged at
night.
The British people have not yet
learned to regard advertising as a mat
ter of news as people do here. The
dry goods ads in America are draw
ing feature in newspaper circulation.
People here have for years found the
advertisements in the newspapers in
teresting and valuable
They haven't got this idea in Lon
don yet. They haven't the same feel
ing that the American public has, that
they can't afford to lose an issue for
fear of losing an opportunity to save
money in buying merchandise.
But they are already beginning to
watch the newspapers for our adver-
tisements.
The circulation of the British papers
is very large, ranging from 100000
to 25O,OO0 with an evening paper, for
example of 100000.
You ask about the percentage of
failures in Great Britain as compared
with those in the United States. l
don't see any difference. Failures
there are from about the same causes
Merchants may get too ambitious,
spread out too much, overstock, over
load on their capital, and go to the
wall-as they do here Old established
firms may slump down through lack of
progressiyeness and let the expense
eat UP the business; die of dry rot.
The failures in the dry goods busi-
ness are rare. The dry goods business
has too large margin of profit to per-
nit failure under proper manage
ment. | can't recall any failure In a
large way in the time I've been in
London-three years.
Is it true that the British are preiu-
diced against American goods because
hn, 'ra ,or.t1 u II.
though it is more exact to say that
they are prejudiced against American
goods because they're not British. The
British have a very patriotic feeling in
the matter. They feel that any busi-
ness which goes outside takes bread
and butter out of the mouths of the
British people. There is a very de-
cided opposition to American goods on
this account. Even those whose feel
ing in the matter is not SO strong
have little hill to climb before they
buy United States products.
Stronger home industries feeling"
than here? Indeed yes. Nobody cares
here. If a Frenchman or German
starts a store with foreign goods here
nobody cares, so long as he is clever
enough to make good. Over there a
sort of personal prejudice exists. They
are militantly British.
We, consequently, stock American
goods only where necessary, making
the bulk of our stock British goods.
We went even further; only half a
dozen of our 1000 employees are Amer
leans. But the clubbing of our store
"the American store" was big OBJ
stacle for us to climb over. We had
to advertise these facts, and lay en-
phasis on the fact that Selfridge's is
British store.
And as soon as we advertised that
fact the pro-British opposition stop
ped. This is another proof of the
fact that advertising produces re-
suits in England just as much as any
where else.
Our British competitors are prob
ably initiating us? No, they're not.
We have the whole field to ourselves.
The British are very conservative, and,
in particular, they don't want to show
in any way that we are cutting in on
them. They are not changing their
methods in any particular way because