Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-27
TRADING STAMPS ARE
DOOMED, SAYS OFFICER
OF LARGE SYSTEM
Executive of Important
"Chain" of Stores Be-
lieves Housewives Are
More Interested in Saw
ing Cash Than Coupons

Trading stamps and profit sharing"
coupons are relics of the past. They have
no place in modern business, in the
opinion Of executives of company oper-
ating $50 grocery stores in this city and
$50 more in nearby places in Pennsyl
vana and New Jersey.
Why this company has abolished stamp
giving and why 1t has adopted the revo
lutionary policy OF closing it's establish
ments between / and o'clock every
afternoon as we'll as why It has abandoned
all sidewalk displays of its goods, are some
of the things one learns II he gets "in-
side facts from the executive offices of
such a chain OF retail stores. The rea-
son behind the radical abolition of stamps
is according to the vice president and
the treasurer of the company which re-
Gently made the change:
People pay more attention to the cost
of living than they used to.
"Giving stamps in huge quantities with
certain kinds of merchandise confuses the
purchaser as to just what he is paying
for his goods
'Housekeepers are more anxious to save
money than to save stickers.
These principles are at the bottom of
the elimination OF the little coupons. In
their day the coupons were as necessary
as they are now Objectionable, the execu-
tives will tell you. What ruined the
practice was that instead of giving one
stamp with each 10 cents worth pur-
chased, as In the early days OF stamps
some dealers began to give many more
stamps with certain goods, The GUS
toner was deceived as to what she was
really paying.
There were advantages to the con-
sumer under the old plan. of course. but
nowadays they are outweighed by other
considerations. For one thing. there are
many homes in this city well furnished
today, because of trading stamps. House.
wives were unconscously saving. Whey
they filled their stamp books they re-
deemed them for valuable household
articles. 1t was a kind Of enforced saw
ing. which would not have been effected
In other ways. But women are scientific
managers of their households now, and
they want to save real cash.
Another thing we are getting away
from is selling certain commodities, such
as tea and coffee, at a high profit, to
make up for losses on goods sold at q
small margin of profit. We are doing
the public real good by reducing such
things as 60 cent tea to 20 cents, and
they actually cost us
Experiments in individual stores, COW
ering several months. proved to the sat-
isfaction of the officers that more eff
tlcient service could be rendered to the
public by closing the grocery stores one
hour each day II was found that al
most no customers came in between / and
In the afternoon. But many persons
were in the store before and after that
hour and they were waited on by par
tial force of statesmen, others being out
for their lunch Children came to the
store after school at noon. and their
mothers got the impression that they
were not waited on carefully. The reason
lay in the short-handed force of clerks.
So the stores have a definite closing time,
and when they are open they have full
allotment of salespeople at all times
Psychology thus plays a big part IN
managing retail stores. Studying what
people want before they know themselves
is the general plan of the officials of such
enterprises. This same chain of stores
has abolished displays of their wares out
doors simply because they began to real
ize that patrons would rather buy fresh
goods than those exposed to the street