The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1914-10-16

"Overbuying," they say, is a wee
that goes with the mail order cataog.
Go into any home that draws its sup
plies from that source ana you will fad
goods that the family does not need
and never would have bought from a
local merchant. In many cases these
unneeded goods-hese freak pur
chases-amount to a surprisingly large
percentage of the total family outlay
II the catalog houses were suddenly
cut out of this class of sales their divi-
dends would undoubtedly suffer de-
cided shrinkage.
These buyers see something aliur-
ingly described in a catalog and be-
come fascinated by it. The silent
salesman in the home keeps on teas
ing them with it until they find
some excuse to justify their purchase
OF the coveted article. These utterly
unjustifed whim sales amount to mil
lions of dollars year."
With some women freak buying be-
comes a passion. They make alb
surdly foolish purchases from mail-order
houses that they would not dream of
making from their home dealer. How
to account for it? Simply the psyche
logical effect of the catalog perhaps.
Anyhow this matter Of freak buying, or
overbuying, is so universal that not one
catalog buyer in a thousand is wholly
exempt from it. The mail-order cata-
log which so loudly proclaims itself an
apostle of prudence, is in fact, most
subtle and pernicious agent Of house
hold extravaganza.
UnscrupuIOus Methods Used by Farm
TO Farm Statesmen
Still another class Of So-called mer-
chants who profit by the general ignor-
ance 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
a distant city. These chaps are most
always single trippers," representing
some firm of absolutely no RESPONSE
bility and who, 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 those 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 quantity of
low grade tea, rice, beans, spices, mo-
lasses, etc., an inferior lot of stuff that
his home merchant wouldn't dare sell
him under any circumstances.
When the shipment is delivered the
buyer will invariably find that those
staple articles, upon which he believed
he was making such saving, having
been omitted, and a notation on the
bill to the effect that on account of mill
troubles or something else it would be
impossible just at present to ship them.
The other stuff would be all there, how
ever, and he will have to accept it,
unless he has been wise enough to
write over the face OF the order before
signing it, that unless the entire order
is shipped within certain time that it
shall be considered cancelled. Such
orders are of course never shipped.
They are dead business.
A Business Proposition
When your home merchant asks for
your patronage his appeal is based
solely on the grounds Of dollars, quality
and service. He believes it means as
much to you as it does to him in those
terms to give him the opportunity to
offer for your comparison his prices and
quality before sending your order away
from home.
Every up-to date merchant now
keeps from two to half dozen mail
order catalogs in his store for the use
of such of his customers as may wish to
use them in making comparisons. The