Imperial Valley press., 1917-08-01
Forgetting the Balance.

from the stove, sand and cracker-box
Stage to the highly organized modern
department store of today presents a
lesson to retail business man that
mcies much detailed study.
The gist of the whole development
evolves around the application of the
rcst elementary psychological prin-
ciples-the study of people and their
raanner of thinking, to business.
The retail store originally pur-
posed to supply the mere needs cf
tie community it served. 1t sold sug-
a., coffee and tea, because these ar
tieles satisfied the ordinary demands
OF mere living. 1t sold calico for
dresses, thread, pins. 1t sold only
those commodities for which there
Was natural demand
The idea of creating a demand, II
appealing to certain well known traits
of human nature, marked the change
lii the manner of doing business in the
lepail establishments Human minds,
Under like circumstances, will act in
similar manner. The most ardent
auvocate or free thinking and free
living is as much slave to certain
mental forces as is his conform:st
reighbor.
What person is so strong minded
t,i-t he, or, even better, she, can ig-
ore a bargain, or deny the call to the
senses versed in an attractive appeal
u certain things in which he takes d
conscious, or even an unconscious de-
light, as colors, sounds, tastes and
odors?
The mere study of elementary psy-
GEOLOGY taught the merchants that
the functional senses, together with
The sense of economy, of greed, OF
comfort, Of social attainment, or pos
session, and of myriad other forces
at work on all humans, could be usal
to a good advantage in presentins.
their merchandise to the people.
Bus more recently, business in ger
oral is realizing that it may be vitally
affected by psychological factors at
V9Ik in community, or in the state
nation. President Wilson, in
speaking of business depression in
TIC early part of his first term,
called it psychological" meaning that
was due to an intangible condition
existing in the minds of the nation.
Suppose that during the summer
months, when business over the en-
Ire nation feels a slight depression,
nfnufacturers, producers, retail and
Wholesale institutions of the coun-
tiy would settle down to sleep and
dream of the approaching increase III
usiness in the fall, and in no mar
nCr seek to make the most of exist
lig conditions. The effect practically
81, uld paralyze' business over the
eatile nation. The public would ac-
cent the role that business in such an
Instance would assume that it must
lie taking.
The same situation is, in fact, pres
ent in FL Centre, much less this
year than ever before, but existing
10 some considerable degree. Some
merchants have chosen to ignore some
$4,000 residents of the county in Or
der to think of some 10000 who
have left on vacations because of sum
iler temperatures.
nc mental assumption on the parJ
ri the retail merchant that summer
business Is going to be bad will as
ausely affect his manner of conducting
business as it will the attitude of his
trade toward business.
IL at any season of the year the
population of Imperial county were
10 greater than it is in the summer.
fhe merchant would still have a fled
of approximately 10000 persons from
which to draw, He would not sit
back In the comfort of his chair and
wait for an additional 10000 to popr-
late the ranches and cities of the Val
ley. He would not forsake his pro-
gressiveness, which he now shows in
fhe winter, because an additional 10.
COO were not present 10 hear his taic.
The people who are in Imperial
county today, and during the sum-
n.er, still have money, still have the
same mental attributes that they have
i'l the winter, and still represent as
potential buying force as they do
IL months when merchants see fit to
attract these people to their stores
El Centre, as the leading city os
the county, cannot afford to be a
winter community. Nothing can hurt
Tie prospects of the city, from a bus