Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1915-12-03
Confessions 6 a
Mail Order Man
By Mr.. M. O. x.
Revelations by One Whose Experience In
the Business Covers q Range From
Office Boy to General Manager
HOW THE BUSINESS EXPANDED.

1T seems so queer that we get so |
few complaints from our customers
out in the country" said one of my
bosses, whom l will call "Y" for con-
venience.
They seem to be satisfied with
whatever we send them," responded
my boss whom will designate for con-
venience "Z.''
"They don't know the difference be-
tween good stuff and bad stuff" said
Y. Il guess it's this way. Out in the
jay towns they have so few things that
they are glad to get anything that
looks all right"
"Ha," said z with shout of laughter,
"They keep their parlors all dark ex-
| day. 1 can understand how their par
lor furniture don't become worn out.
remember how it was when l was
boy
Look here, x, why not start a
department of furniture for our Gus
TONER'S" said Y. 1--WE ought to find it
| profitable" He spoke to me.
Il think we're losing money every
day by not handling furniture" in
terjected 2. "Supposing we let x try
out his hand by putting a new line in
our atalogue-furniture, carpets, rugs,
pictures and that stuff"
So it was decided that should have
a respite from my office work and put
in my time for few weeks looking
up the possibilities of furniture de-
partment. All this time while we
were doing an enormous business, sew
eral thousand dollars worth every
week, we carried no stock at all with
the exception of a few cheap watches
and other articles of jewelry-revol-
vers and half dozen guns. The GUS
toners were furnishing the capital for
our business, cash in advance, SO that
all we had to do was to take their
money, go out and buy what the or
ders called for, for generally less than
one-half the amount of the remittance,
and keep the balance, from so to so
per cent of the amount, as our profit.
After visiting several of the furni-
ture manufacturers in our city, for
mulated list of prices and arranged
that we could obtain any of the arti-
cles on the list at any time by paying
only for such as we had orders for
OF course we got all of these things
at wholesale prices and 1 had learned
that another discount can always be
demanded for the payment of cash
So I secured from the manufacturers
photographs of the various articles
had picked out and showed them to Y
and 2.
"They look rather skinny and slim
those chair legs" said Y.
''That photograph of chiffoniel
looks like coffin stood on end-it''
so narrow" suggested 2.
'fBut picked out only the cheapel
grades Of stuff" replied 'You TOLD
me not to try to get anything ex
pensive. It's all cheap stuff"
Cant we make it look better in tn,
catalogue than it does in the photo
graph?" suggested Y.
We sent for a wood engraver t.
. come to the Office and then we wen
into the subject in detail He sail
that he could make the chair legs lool
bigger and stronger by drawing then
as though they were larger than the.
we're actually. AS for the chiffonie1
and similar articles, he showed us
very neat plan. He took a pair o
shears and split the photograph il
two, then pasted the two parts o.
another sheet of paper so that tn
split parts were about quarter Of a.
inch apart.
"Now that looks like a wide, CON
Portable chiffonier," said Y, and W
could not help but agree with him.
, made an entirely different piece of ful
: niture. 1t looked half again as wild
: and presented really desirable al
> pearance while, as the photograp
showed it, it would look too narrow an
ungraceful to sell well. The chang
in the character Of the il1ustratio
made it look like a piece of furnitur
worth 500, while it was to cost us onl
about $3.50, wholesale.
And the chairs, when the engrave
had drawn them to look as though th
legs were an inch and half in dian
, eter, instead of as they really wer'
actually less than an inch through
. looked like SO chairs instead of lik
the chairs they were, honestly mad
D to retail for $1.25.
9 And so it went on. We took bl
Y reaus, commodes, wooden beds, and a
|" of the various articles that had S.
Il lected and made them look in OF
catalogue illustrations as though the
were vastly superior pieces, suitabi
/ for the finest rooms in the house. Tt
>, engraver did his work well, with a CO..
u slant grin on his face, for he admitte
that all of this hocus-pocus, as h
called it, was a new one on him.
One day he said to me, confidentia
n ly, "Say x, what will those poor yaI
Is out in the country say when they G!
y the real thing? Won't they holler.
I'd I repeated this to Y and 2, who r
a. piled aoothingly that If they hollere
d. we would send them nice letter ar
N Jolly them along.
n We've got their money, anyhow
IL said Mr.. Y. Let 'em holler."
or "Yes, and they'll send after more
k said 2.
a. We decided that we would take Il
70 curse off the chances for kicking
putting the actual measurements in
~ the catalogue descriptions. If thf
iS ~~~~~~~~~~
-. Made Jack Sweat.
=. While enjoying the new-found bli
- = of the honeymoon doting bridegroo
- hired a tandem bicycle and took I
- bride for an afternoons roundabo
=. run. The fair lady knew little
nothing about wheeling. The fo
b hpa6 down