Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1914-09-04
CATALOC CONCERNS USE
CLEVER SELLING SCHEMES

is at once apparent that the charges
for shipping by any of these means,
added to the catalog price, would
make the article cost much more
when it reached you than would be
charged by one of your home mer-
chants. Here is the "nigger in the
wood-pile". They well know that
for the thrifty housewife or farmer
to really benefit by the low price of
their leaders" they must have them
shipped with enough other goods to
make up minimum freight package
one hundred pounds, knowing
that the bulk of such orders, in most
cases, would be composed of what is
known to the trade as blind stock"
Goods that the general public know
little about either as to quality or
price.
Overbuying-Its Attendant Evils.
Merchants throughout the country
affected by mail-order competition
seem to be of the same general opin-
ion as to it's greatest evil; the abnor-
NAL development of that trait of hui
man nature that prompts us to buy
something we really don't want and
have no particular use for.
| t"Overbuying," they say, els the vice
that goes with the mail-order cata-
log. Go into any home that draws it's
supplies from that source and you
will find goods that the family does
not need and never would have
bought from a local merchant. In
many cases these unneeded goods
these freak purchasesHamount to a
Surprisingly large percentage of the
total family outlay. II the catalog
houses were suddenly cut out of this
class of sales dividends would un-
doudtedly suffer decided shrinkase.
These buyers see something allur-
ingly described in catalog and be-
come fascinated by it. The silent
salesman in the house. keeps on teas
ing them with it until they find some
excuse to justify their purchase of the
coveted article. These utterly unjus-
titled within sales amount to millions
of dollars year.
with some women freak buying
becomes passion. They make alb
suodly foolish purchases from mail
der houses that they would not
dream Of making from their home
dealer. How to account for It? Sim
ply the psychological effect of the cat
alog perhaps. Anyhow this matter of
freak buying, Of overbuying, is SO uni
versal that not one catalog buyer in
a. thousand is wholly exempt from it.
The mail-order catalog which SO loud
ly proclaims itself an apostle of pru-
dence, is in fact most subtle and
fpernicious agent of household extra
vagance."
INSCRIPTIONS Methods Used by Farm
to Farm Statesmen.
Still another class of so-called mer-
chants who profit by the general ig-
norance on the part of the public as
to true values, is the farm to farm
solicitor who represents himself to
be connected with some Wholesale
grocery house in distant city. These
chaps are most always "single trip
pers." representing some firm of abb
solutely no responsibility and whom
under no circumstances, will ever
cover the same territory twice.
The bait they use is to quote ex-
ceptionally low prices on two or three
staple articles, such as sugar, coffee
or tobacco; prices that they know are
away under the local merchant. The
thrifty farmer is at once interested in
such prices. and imagines he is doing
a fine stroke of business in ordering
enough of these staples to last him
year. He feels so good about it that
it is quite easy for the salesman to
load up the order with a large guam