The Butler weekly times., 1917-11-08
The Mail Order House and
Conservation.

Conservation.
Much has been said in the last few
months about stopping wastage and
conserving our resources that we
may be better able to supply the de-
mands of the men in the trenches.
But there is one form of business
Mastagc that being Overlooked,
and that is the mail order house,
which is taking many thousands of
dollars out of Bates county each
year. v
The money sent to the mail order
house pays no taxes in Bates county,
it supports no Bates county schools
or churches. 1t builds no roads or
bridges in Bates county When
worthy Bates county institution is
in need of funds the merchants of
the towns of the county are always
willing to contribute, but how much
do the mail order houses put up1 Did
any of the good patrons of the mail
order houses ever send a subscrip-
ton list to them for help in building
new church or to pay the back sal
ary of the preacher, and if they did
what response did they meet with?
Money sent to the mail order house
is out of circulation as far as the
community from which it is sent is
concerned, while money spent with
the home merchant is put back into
the local channels of trade and goes
to support local institutions.
In a measure the local merchant
himself is responsible for this con-
dition. In the first place he must
have the goods that his customers
want; in the second place he must
sell the goods at reasonable profit;
he must have an attractive place of
business; he must have courteous
clerks. But the most important of
all, he must let the people know that
he has the merchandise that they
want, and right there is where the
mail order house takes advantage of
the man who don't advertise. Last
winter at meeting of advertising
men in Chicago the advertising man
of one of the big mail order houses
was asked how he placed his adver-
tising. He said that his firm had a
force of clerks busy all the time look
ing over country newspapers and
when they saw that certain thing
was not being advertised in a certain
locality that locality was immediate
ly flooded with circulars advertising
that article. There was an illustra-
ton of how that plan worked in
Bates county last spring. There is
certain article which sells for
about $50 that is sold by several
Bates county merchants, but which
they did not advertise. During the
summer one OF the big mail order
houses sent out circulars calling at
tention to sixty satisfied customers
in Bates county who had bought that
article from them. There was three
thousand dollars that should have
been spent at home, and just for one
article.
1t is said that one train last June
delivered forty-five bills of mail or
der goods at the Butler depot. That
sort of thing should be and could be
stopped if the home merchants
would only realize what they are los
ing every day.
The big catalogues that the mail
order house sends out costs thou
sands and thousands of dollars to
compile and print. 1t costs eight
cents to mail one. or rather it did be-
fore the postage rate was increased,
and they send one or two to every
one on their list annually, besides
supplements about every two
months. The local merchant can
reach everyone of those people, at
a small per cent of what it costs the
mail order house. by a judicious use
OF the local paper. and the money
that they pay the printer comes
right back to them. and is kept at
home.
How many Liberty Bonds would
the profits on the mail order busi-
ness from this county have bought
since the war commenced?