The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1913-03-27
HOW RETAILERS
USE PARCEL POST
NEW GOVERNMENT MAIL SER
VICE CAN BE USED SUCCESS
FULLY BY MERCHANTS
IN CAMPAIGN AGAINST CATALOG HOUSES
Business Mems Magazine Explains
How Parcel Post Can be Great
Advantage to Small Dealers

The Register has several times men
toned the possibilities the parcel post
may hold for the business men of
Brookings in their campaign against
the mail order houses, and the follow
ing argument along this line, taken
from System" the we'll known bust
ness mans magazine, is of interest:
Judged from the experience of re-
tailers who are using the new car
rier to promote business, the local
and rural free delivery service of the
parcel post offers to many dealers a
means of developing local trade and of
winning back customers who have
taken to buying by mail. Not by offer
ing a mail-order service, but by utiliz-
ing the facilities which these local
deliveries provide for bring customers
and merchants together.
"The parcel post supplies a new link
in the service chain which binds the
consumer to the retail store. The last
important link was forged a dozen
years ago when the telephone captur-
ed city and suburban residence dis
tricts and brought the farmer within
speaking distance of the stores in
his market town. 1t made ordering
easy, lightened the work of the buyer
and put him within quick touch with
his source of supplies. In the cities
and towns its influence on trade was
felt Immediately, but in the country
the problem of getting the goods to
the buyer remained as a barrier to
telephone sales.
After a decade of waiting, however,
the parcel post has arrived, to put the
small retailer in the large city on. an
equality with the large department
store, and to give the merchant in the
smaller towns a definite advantage
over his mail order rivals.
The small town merchant can now
get goods to his country buyers more
quickly and more cheaply than can
any seller outside of the county. In
conjunction with the rural telephones
which criss-cross the farming dis
tricts everywhere, he has the inside
track on the trade of his county if he
only bestirs himself and profits BY it
before possible changes in the law
take away his advantage.
"The trade-building possibilities of
the parcel post are limited, both for
the retail storekeeper and the catal-
Ogue house. The latter has made the
most general use of the new service,
both for the advertising value of de.
liveries made by it's e and for the
very real savings effected in carriage
as compared with express rates to
many points. Some of the larger
houses, however, have been content to
make these obvious savings, waiting
until the new service finds itself and
standardizes it's methods before max.
ing any costly effort to exploit it.
For retail merchants in many lines
the cheap, easy and accident-proof
carriage of the rural free delivery
routes offers a promising opportunity
to develop trade by supplying to coun-
try customers service never possible
before. Shoe stores, laundries, dry
goods stores, drug stores, hardware
stores, and other retail stores, which
handle goods coming within the weight
limit of eleven pounds are making
such deliveries by mail. Dealers who
are exploiting parcel post orders be-
cause of their news value and the
novelty of the plan have learned it's
value as a regular business-getter.
Their trials in some cases have
brought their country neighbors into
line for home buying again."