Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1916-04-03
They Are Coming This Summer, Clean
Up and Be Ready to Receive Them
TRADE AT HOME PRINCIPLES.

Cutthroat competition between To-
cal merchants is absolutely destruct-
i've. To be eternally lowering the
per cent of profit in order to secure
business from your competitor can
result in nothing less than ruin for
both the aggressor and his competi-
tor One cuts his per cent OF profit
and the other must follow him down,
and will follow him down, in order to
hold his customers, until both are
handling merchandise at loss. That
spells ruin to them both. Neither is
such competition good for the con-
sumer. The local merchant has his
proper place in the economy of trade.
He brings the consumers necessities
together in large lots, saving quanti-
ty discounts, quantity freight rates,
etc. Thus he is enabled through
quantity buying to save reasonable
profit for himself in acting as the
agent of the consumer, which, in
reality, the local merchant is. There
fore, the per cent a merchant can
save in handling big lots and that he
can make in purchasing big lots, over
what the consumer could get buying
small lots as his necessity arises, is
the merchants legitimate profit.
Taking that as his profit, he prospers
without taking that profit out of his
local customer.
But, the moment local merchants
combine to take away from the con-
sumer a greater profit than they are
able to legitimately earn by such saw
ing, they become teaches on the con-
sumer, and have no legitimate reason
to succeed. Nor will they succeed
for the consumer will refuse to be
held up and buy his Supplies where
he can get them for less. Whatever
reason may be found, if indeed there
be any justification for trading by
mail lies in the lack of the merchant
to fulfill the proper function of legiti-
mate agency between the producer
and consumer.
A larger legitimate profit may ac-
crue to the merchant through favor
able buying. A thing well bought is
half sold. The merchant who can
outbuy his competitor can outsell his
competitor and still make the same
rate of profit. That sort of competi-
tion is legitimate and healthful and
should be the aim of every merchant
Any combination between merchants
to hold up price levels, where all of
them buy of the same jobber, at the
same cost price, and sell to the con-
sumer at the same selling price, in
the hope of holding high profit lev
els, is simply a combination to hold
up the consumer, is suicidal to the
merchant, ruinous to the town and
a sure breeder of mail-order buying.
The highest act of citizenship and the
greatest benefaction to both the mer-
chant and the community is to lend
a hand in helping to break any such
combination, for such policy on the
part of the merchants is out of line
with the law of economics, is the
wrong method of merchandising, and
where it is allowed to long exist in a
community will certainly destroy the
country merchant and the country
town.
The trade-at-home compaign now
being conducted by the Tidings is in
the hope of bringing the merchant,
the consumer and the producer to
better understanding and creating
fair to all, in which Ash
land money will be kept in Ashland,
for every dollar sent to mail-order
houses is as if the community had
been hit in the head with a brick.
Bound the city long enough with
bricks and you beat it to death. Con-
ditions of trade in Ashland need to
be reformed and sound basis estab-
lished whereon the consumer, the
producer and the merchant can trade
together on equally beneficial terms.
Nothing short of that will keep Ash
land dollars at work in Ashland.
No rule is fair unless it works with
benefit both ways. The pro-
ducer must have cash home market
for what he produces. Nothing raised
in the community should be bought
by local merchants through jobbers
from outside producers, and no
producer should send to mail-order
houses for supplies that can be pur-
chased through the home merchant
The trade-at-home campaign will
be of little benefit unless conditions
are first made fair both for mer-
chant, producer and consumer. Mail
order buying will certainly destroy
any city. Cooperation is the only
salvation and can be maintained only
through fair dealing by everybody
concerned.