New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-09-28
To the Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: We hear from manufacturers associa-
tons, etc, Of the necessity of training men
fer foreign fields, and in academic fashion
manufacturers are advised for their souls
good and presumably with a view to pecuniary
benefit as to methods to be employed for
reaching and-what is more necessary still
keeping the foreign trade
SO far as know, however, the tale has yet
TO be told by the man who has been abroad
/ the employe into whose hands are committed
the destines of the export department. that
unfortunate individual who has, at one and
the same time TO satisfy the demands of the
foreign customer and yet is bound by the
hard and fast rules of his chief at the home
offce-whose advice and entreaties are so
often ignored, with the result that in despair
he resigns and the manufacturer says,
There's nothing to this export business"
OF course, | don't say that all our manu-
facturers are like this, but | do say that 70
per cent Of them, when they go into the ex-
port business, expect as immediate a return
as if they were opening a branch office in an
other city here, where probably their name
and possibly their goods are more or less
known to prospective customers.
They lose sight of the fact that the foreign
customer, whether he be European or South
American, is a very cautious. conservative
person, and is not TO be "live-wired" or
rushed into giving an order for goods unless
he can practically see them sold in advance,
and hardly then unless he can induce the
manufacturer to grant him such terms of
payment that the goods are sold by him be-
fore the manufacturer has to be paid. Even
then the order is more than likely to be in
the nature of trial order and for a COM
paratively small amount In other words
the customer wants the manufacturer to
finance him, and this has TO large extent
been done by the English and Germans before
the war And even if the representative
the spot and able TO investigate the financial
standing of sucn customers reports that he
is good risk many American manufacturers
demand not only cash against arrival of
goods-and this the customer. under present
conditions, is ready to concede-but often
part cash with order or payment of freight
in advance. This, to the customers mind,
shows an utter lack Of trust by the manu-
facturer, especially when he has gone to great
pains TO demonstrate to the representative
the soundness of his financial condition.
Another phase of the question which has,
in my experience, initiated against our get
ting foreign business Il don't mean war ma
terial is that, for the most part, our manu-
facturers want the foreigner to purchase the
goods which are selling so well here without
reference TO the fact that his tastes and those
of his customers differ entirely from those
Of the domestic trader or customer. In this
respect-in this worship Of standard goods
the English have not been much better than
we, but the chief reason why the Germans,
considering their limitations, have progressed
so far and done so much damage to the
American and English export trader is that
they were willing-at least on entering a
market-to duplicate, to the last color of the
plaid, articles which the customer has been
buying elsewhere. The attitude of the Amer
lean manufacturer often is that what is good
enough for enlightened Americans must GER
tainly be good enough for unenlghtened and
ignorant foreigners.
A friend of mine, an official in the foreign
bureau of one of the Chambers of Commerce
in this country, and who has had a lot of ex-
perience in Argentina, recently said TO me:
THE Engishman is pretty cautious in his |
expenditures and the German is of such a |
methodcal and careful turn of mind that he
will not put out money unless ke is pretty |
sure of a return, but for tight-wad-ness'
commend one TO the American manufacturers
Both the other nations believe that, BIZ cast
ing their bread upon the waters il shall re- |
turn TO them even after many days; but the |
American wants to see 1t floating ashore in |
the shape of caviar on toast within thirty |
days or he feels that his representative has
been loahng I've seen Germans and English
working in Buenos Ayres, and tell you that
in some cases men have been on the job there
for year and even longer without making
any showing in the way of orders; but they
reaped their reward in the end-the business
became established on q sound basis, the rep .