The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-07-17
Richmond Is Just Starting to
Grow and Is Now in Need
of More Wholesale Con-
Germs.
BY FRANK PARKER sTocksRIDGE

BY FRANK PARKER STOCkBRlDGE
1t is hard to find a town so small
that it has no wholesale business.
There is no town so large that it
does not want more wholesale bust
ness.
The experience of commercial or
CARNATIONS that have made special eff
forts to build up wholesale trade for
their towns, has demonstrated that
there is no way in which this desirable
class of business can be stimulated
and increased so effectively as through
the cooperation of the merchants OF
the town through their commercial or
ganization.
There are two principal methods
that have been adopted with success
by chambers of commerce throughout
the country, in promoting wholesale
business. One way is for the heads
of the wholesale houses themselves
to go out on trade extension trips
visiting their present and prospective
customers and thus establishing per
sonal contact without trying to sell
goods at the time. If any proof OF
the value of personal contact in bus
mess were needed, the experience OF
the big cities-and small ones too
that have conducted these trade ex
cursion trips would settle the question
| The other way is to offer special
| inducements to bring buyers from the
retail houses to this town to make
their purchases. A very effective way
of doing this is for the Chamber OF
Commerce to arrange to pay the rail-
road fares of every buyer whose pur
chases from the wholesale house
amount to a given sum. Another way
is to arrange with the passenger asso
i citation that controls passenger traff1t
in your territory, to offer reduced rail
road rates for a given period for buy
ers. If your town is big enough anc
the attractions of your wholesale
houses are good enough and your or
ganization is strongly enough financed
so that you can safely guarantee tc
the passenger association a reasonable
number of passengers within giveI
time, you will have little trouble. IL
obtaining reduced rates.
"All very WE'LL" you say, but | an
not a wholesaler and this does no
, interest me-"
1t ought to interest you. 1t doesn'
make any difference whether you are
/ a wholesaler, a retailer, a manufactur
er. a professional man, salaried mar
or a wage worker-everything tha
benefits Richmond benefits its mer
chants.
That is why it is your business t
help build up the wholesale trade o
this town just as much as it is the
! business of the wholesaler.
We have in Richmond commercial
organization that is trying to de
things for the town. This building
up of wholesale trade is one OF the
things il can do if everybody in the
town helps And even if it did nothing
else. it would still be true If you anC
everyone else who does his share to
ward making your towns development
organization effective. you would ge
out of it all you put in and more.
You want TO keep this in mind. too
Richmond has only just begun Il
far il is from any other place-if il i:
in the United States of America it i!
an infant. We haven't any grown-uI
cities in this country yet. Even New
York and Chicago are unfinished
towns l was in Chicago a few week!
ago and saw them tearing down {
twelve story steel building to make
room for one of thirty stories anC
they were doing that kind of thing al
over the business district. II will bt
a thousand years yet before the cite:
of America reach their greatest pos
sible MISUNDERSTANDING Longer
than that Every village of today ha:
within itself the possibilities of a me
tropolis, and one of the things tha
makes a metropolis is the wholesale
trade. The great city of St. Loui:
owes its growth and its prosperity al
most entirely to the fact that it Ia.