Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1914-09-11
LARGE SHARE Of MERCHANTS
S0-CALLED PROFIT GOES
FOR FREIGHT CHARGES

overhead expense entailed in main
tanning a large Office force as we'll as
a corps of high salaried advertise
ment writer's. These are the men
who paint in such attractive word
pictures the virtues Of the goods sold
by the house. For this work they
secure the best men they can get,
paying them salaries ranging from
$1,000 to $4,000 per year. Did it
ever occur to you what it costs to put
in your hands one of these beautiful
ly illustrated catalogs? In their lit
erature you are informed that they
are generously giving away some
thing free. postage prepaid, that rep
resents an outlay on their part of
some 25 cents. and they hope you
will appreciate their efforts to aid the
oppressed and downtrodden in re-
ducing the high cost of living. etc.
Now, as a matter of fact, although
they put out several millions Of copies
of their books each year, 1t costs
them far more than Is cents.
Taking a catalog issued for this
season by one of the two largest
mail-order houses of the country az
q sample. and. the same number of
copies the same house sent out last
year, careful estimate shows that
just for printing and mailing the cost
would exceed so cents. Add to that,
pro-rata, the enormous sum it costs
them for their staff of "Ad" writers
and illustrators and the total would
very probably exceed dollar. Many
people receive a catalog who do not
buy q cents worth throughout the
whole year. SO it is very apparent
that the statement given out recently
by former employee Of the house In
mind was very near the truth when
he said the expense of publishing
their catalog for 1913 amounted to
8 2-3 per cent of their total sales for
the year. With their immense office
force, high real estate values, gener-
al advertising, ETC., 1t Is reasonable
to suppose that their cost Of doing
business could not by any possibility
be less than 20 per cent-probably
more.
II it costs the catalog and large
city houses as much to do business,
and they can buy their goods no
cheaper, there is only one way left
in which they can sell under the local
merchant, and that is by being salts
fed with a smaller rate of income on
the capital invested in the business.
How many of your merchants make
more than 10 per cent on their In
vested capital? Not worry many. Yet
the mail-order house referred to
above declared q dividend last year
of trifie more than % per cent.
A very natural mistake is made by
many people in thinking they can buy
goods cheaper from stores doing a
business in a large city than they can
from their own home town mer-
chants. There are many reasons why
this belief exists among jewellers in
small towns and rural communities,
but the main one is because people
simply take for granted the state
ments made by such concerns in their
advertisements and in catalogs, with
out taking the time or making the
effort to investigate for themselves.
Many go to the large nearby cities %
make their purchases because they
think they have a larger and more
varied stock of goods to select from.
In a measure that is true, but bear in
mind the fact while you are consid-
ering this question, that the large
city stores cater to the extreme of