Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-12-10

ing out the letters the returns came
IN. Express orders, money orders,
checks and currency. We realized
about 81 from each watch after de-
Quoting the express and c. o. D.
charges. So we kept it up until we
had marketed thousands of watches
in this way.
Il believe those fellows will buy
stuff straight" remarked one of my
bosses to the other, one day. They
have fallen for the watches and other
things" For we had sent out other ar
ticles Of jewelry on the same plan and
had discovered an especial demand for
revolvers, guns. etc.
We moved into more commodious
quarters. We prepared a little an
nouncement On a single sheet Of pa
per, the size of letter sheet, giving
illustrations of the articles for which
we had discovered the demand and
printing the price, together with
stated value greatly in excess Of the
logue, a mail order catalogue, because
we sent it only to the addresses of
those who lived in the small towns
and in the country.
But we suffered for lack of names.
We must have names, as the express
agents and railroad agents had been
loaded up. They were on to the
game now. So we selected one or two
weekly newspapers which had a cir
culation in the small towns and among
the farmers and we inserted an adver-
dsement in which we announced
fine revolver at a very low price.
Yet this price gave US more than one
hundred per cent. on the cost to us
We selected other newspapers and ad-
vertised watches, guns, jewelry, etc.
As the names came in we filled the
orders and sent to each customer our
little catalogue 1eaf1et. The orders
came in by the hundreds, by the thou
sands.
My salary was increased. 1t rose to
SO, to $12, to SIS, to s25 week. /
wore no more secondhand clothing.
I went to a night school, where I
studied hard. I learned shorthand
and typewriting. Ny value to the
business was increasing all the time.
Ny bosses made thousands of dollars.
Our catalogue Ieaf1et increased page
by page as we added various articles.
But we did not carry these articles
in stock. Oh, no. We had arrange
ments with various wholesale houses
to fill our orders when they came in.
We never bought a dollars worth of
goods until we had the money in
hand. We were doing business on
other peoples money. Can you mag
inc anything SO easy and so profitable?
A customer would send us SO with
which to fill an order. We would go
to the wholesale house and pay 81 or
SIS for the article, send it to the Gus
toner and keep the difference, which
was our profit Of course, there were
office expenses to pay. There were
printing bills and postage bills, but
they we're merely incidental to the
great profits which we were placing
in the bank.
We planned all sorts of things. We
discovered that the woman in the
household was the easy one to deal
with, so we played up to the female
contingent. We appealed to her vanity,
to her love of home decoration, to
her love Of her children, etc. We
wrote out carefully our catalogue con-
tents and then we worked it over a
dozen times to get the best talking
points for the women. We laughed
over it. We shouted aloud when some
particularly apt phrase or sentence
would be evolved which sounded as
though it would hit the spot
Oh, yes, we studied human nature.
We laughed at the poor country mer-
chants who found their trade slipping
away from their stores and diverted
to US by the clever printed matter
which we sent out. There would be
big laugh whenever we would set
an order from country merchant
himself, but these were few and far be-
tween, because we realized that the
poor country merchant had but little
cash to spend. We were getting all
of his profits, and we knew it, long be-
fore he began to realize it.
AS students of human nature we
became adopts. An office was opened
in a big eastern city. Then we dis
covered that people took a pride in
receiving letters and packages from a
big city. We found out that people
right in our own city would answer
our advertisements and write to the
branch office instead of writing to
our own home Office right in the same
city, both addresses being given in
the advertisements.
Business piled up until we despaired
of taking care of the money that came
in so bountifulIy.
Wen have to begin to pay storage
on our money" said one of the bosses
one day. 1--WE have no room here for
it," and it was true.