The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1922-05-12

ton of that merchandise necessary.
The merchandise must pass Glaar
out through thu end OF the pipe be.
fore the sale mas really beer com
pletely made. At the end of the
last link in this pire of distribu.
ton. we have n tap, and through
that tap, ninety, odd percent OF all
merchandise sold in America must
pass and does pass into the hands
OF the ultimate consumer. That tap
is the retail sales person behind the
Gently have shown US Tin the case
OF our experiments at least) that
this tap is Just forty.fva percent
open today; that ffty. five out OF
100 sales made by advertisirs ara
killed by salespeople. Advertising
seldom sells goods. Advertisins
does not sell goods except In tbs
case OF the great mall order houses,
perhaps, and the companies that
deal directly with the customer All
that advertising may do for most
| OF us is to bring customers into
stores where salespeorle may either
sell them goods or kin the sales, as
they did in IS percent Of the cases
of our test.
Count Of People Entering Store
| I'm recent issue of the Satur-
day Evening Post l noticed story
OF the country in which mention
was made Of one store wishing to
know how many people it had to
handle on its main floor in the
course of a day 1t put checkers at
the doors and discovered run
900 people passed into that store in
one day. That same article mention
ed that $4,000 individual sales were
| made that day--an enormous vol
ume of sales--but the striking point
was the fact that 140, 900 people had
walked out of that store without
buying. Seventy percent of the
chances to sell offered to the sales
people in that store were rejected,
and the potential customers came
out without buying. Allowing for a
larger percentage of pure showcase
shoppers in a department store.
fence that fifty Ave out OF 100 po-
result of advertising, 20 out with
out buying. And when | speak. OF
advertising l mean local advertis-
ing of all types just as much as ma
ional advertising. The success or
| failure Of advertising conducted by
local store depends as much upon
the sales ability of the salesperson
as does the success OF any of the
great advertising campaigns. Adver
Using brings customers in to buy
the goods from salespeople, and yet
we, have done little on nation
wide scale to help them to become
better sAlespeople and so overcome
this present increased resistance to
the buying impulse on the part Of
our buying public: and also to help
US take advantage to the fullest
possible degree Of all our advertis
today are putting in educational de-
| partments They have educational
I directors who so into each depart
n1ent of the store and take little
groups of employees at time ana
! instruct them definitely in the best
| possible way to overcome sales re-
| sistence; but nothing. comparative
| ly, has been done for the smaller
stores in the large cities and for the
torres in the smaller cities; and
| yet the Agricultural Publishers As
| ISOLATION assures US, as a result of
worry careful investigation. that So
percent Of all merchandise sold in
| America is sold in towns OF less
than 25'000 population
To-day, we have come to realize
| that no article is worth advertising
| that viii not. sell itself If the full
stood, because the most advertising
can do is to make the full facts
thoroughly understood. That is why
to my mind all intelligent merch-
ants have long passed the point
! where they need coercion in the
matter of truth in Advertising, pc
cause advertising is simply an at
tempt to describe merchandise so
people will come into stores and
See if the goods square with tie
description. If not they don't buy
or If they do, they go back home
and test the articles in, the home
and find how big a liar the adver
tiser was. OF course il he wasn't a
liar they would find that out. Any
person who tries to sell by misre
presenting merchandise in adyertis-
| ing is tearing down with his own
success in merchandising may ba
based and that is the good will of
| the customer.
Now a retailer may say: How
can | build advertising into an ar
! ticle?" or course the retailer can
not build advertising into the ar.
| ticle but he can pick articles into
which advertising has been built.
Building Advertising Into Article
What do we mean by building
advertising into an article? How do
you build advertising into an ar
ticle, II you are manufacturer or
how do YOU recognize merchandise
into which advertising has been
built, or il you are retailer? How
| is advertising built into a newspa-
per? How is effective advertising
built into any kind of media? It is
done through looking at the article
| through the eyes of the prospective
customer. And we must remember
tcleariy that we can't sell the article
Customers come in and buy articles
but we never sell articles. We sell
the use to which the article will be
put. Twenty YEARS ago Mr.. Simmons
Of the Simmons Hardware company
said to the statesmen in hardware
| stores: Don't try to sell augers: sell
| the customers holes and he will
have to buy an auger to make
them. The same thing is true OF
everything that you and try to SELL
For example, let's take the case of
mems overcoats. Perhaps you think
you bought an overcoat last fall?
You didn't buy an overcoat What
you bought was warmth, comfort,
protection. style, At, appearance;
you bought the functions of the
oyercoat. Every woman who buys
clothes buys style first and the other
cor sideraGons-she doesn't buy a
cloak or sllit she buys the function