The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-03-15

ilnes that many manufacturers are TAX
ing no orders more than 60 DAYS in
advance, or over the amount of cutt;nq
leather on hand. When a snortin@
goods store placed an order for base
ball shoes recently, ethe manufacturers
refused to quote prices and accented
the order only on the UNDERSTANDING
that they did not guarantee delivery
The local store must take the goods
that it gets and pay whatever the mar
ket price happens to be at the time of
delivery or go without them. Another
local dealer has received letter from
a manufacturer thanking him for coun-
demanding an order. The manufac
turer would have lost money if he had
been forced to fill it at the price
agreed upon few days before.
All Materials Advance.
The advance in the price of shoes is
not due to leather alone. There are
something like 2S7 parts to the ordi-
nary shoe and the prices of every part
have gone up. Shoe-strings, for exam
pie have gone up 400 per cent within
six months The dealer now must
charge 10 cents for the pair of laces
he formerly gave away. In like man
ner, the price of every accessory to
the trade, down to the paper and Irvine
used in wrapping up bundles, has ad.
vanced.
The Boston man, who for various
reasons did not wish his name used
threw some interesting side-lights on
his business. He said that the popular
conception of the manufacturers profit
on pair of shoes was somewhat anus.
ing to anyone Sin the know
Any shoe manufactures. or dealer
for that matter, viii agree with me
, that the manufacturer s net profit on
a pair of shoes is actually lust about
one cent in many cases OF course
when a factory does a large volume OF
business the aggregate of these one
, cent profits is large.
While it is true that the manufac
turer works on the Smallest possible
margin of priit, it is mistake to as
sumo that the retail dealer gets it all
To my mind, the retail shoe business il
y mighty precarious one unless the
dealer knows his business thoroughly
The overhead charges are large and
the dealer must be a shrewd and care
! full buyer or he will run onto the rocks
| in no time.
Much Explaining to Be Done.
Just at present, Mr.. Retailer is il
mighty uncomfortable position. be
lieve me. Upon his shoulders must fal
the burden of educating the public Il
a new standard of shoes He must
make his customers understand thai
/ they must not expect to get anything
like the value for their money tha1
they got a year ago.
| The speaker gave a few interesting
/ figures about the best of shoes II
/ 1912, he said, shoe to retail at SO .5C
cost the dealer S2.64 Today they
cost him 1910 and the worst is vet t,
come. The principal factor in the ad
vance is the rise of leather prices. O.
teourse, put practically every othei
item of expense has also contribute,
/ its quota to the advance.
] ''Of course, there s lot of leatne
left il the world - he concluded, H'bu
most of it is ON the backs of living
1 animals They tell me that there ar
1 thousands of skins rotting on wharve
lin the ports where embargoes or lacl
of shipping facilities have made then
inaccessible So the-wor5d s availabl
supply is being rapidly exhausted. Fv
cry country is using its own produc
4 and securing other markets. Weiy
got to outbid foreign agents for ever,
scrap of leather that S put up for sale
War is all that Sherman said
was as far as we in the shoe trad
are concerned. Every day the war con
tinues the leather prices seem (
squirm up another notch or two
"What will the final result be- Say
wish I thought / knew.'