Abilene weekly reflector., 1922-01-12

total OF over Two Tons In ten days.
It is doubtful II this record was ever
equaled by anysfetail concern In the
state"
While the Kansas Cash Stores
were started by outside capital, they
are now owned ana operated by home
people strictly. Mr.. Edwards says
while he has had various offers both
from local and out OF town people to
put money into the business, these
offers have always been refused, and
not one dollar of stock Is for sale.
Hints on Buying
Ever since l went into business
at Abilene, l have discounted my
bills. Whenever / have bill which
will pay me per cent / pay 1t
promptly. send in the money.
can do this because my business Is
cash.
II have tired buying from whole
salers close to home. and wholesalers
in New York and Chicago. My ex-
perience in buying long ways from
home Is not satisfactory. IT Is hard
to get service from some of these
very big houses. They get your
orders mixed up, and fail to send you
what you want. Then there Is al
ways more or less trouble with pack
ages which arrive damaged, and
short. Cases Of jam often come In
with one or two cans missing, and 1t
is: a lot Of bother to be always fuss
ing with the railroads about these
little claims. There are some lines
which these houses handle which
can't be beat, and | would like to
handle them, but the bother and de-
lay and annoyance is too great and l
have cut them all out. l give most
Of my business now to firm which
/ have found never misrepresents
anything to me. can absolutely de-
pend on getting exactly what the
salesman says he will send.
Il did buy of another firm quite a
bit. but l found that they were not
careful enough about their private
brands. The stuff packed under
those brands did not run regular.
Sometimes it was good and some
times 1t wasn't. There Is nothing
which will kill a private brand and
injure the grocer who handles that
brand as quickly as irregularity in
quality. The customer must absO-
lutely know what the brand means,
and il he doesn't-gOOd night.
"There is another big house which
II might trade with a good deal, but
l Just naturally don't like the man
at the head of it. suppose it is
purely personal grudge, but it ex-
lists, and / do my buying elsewhere.
II never buy. in large quantity. 1
buy futures only in very limited
way. My idea is to buy light at the
market, sell the stuff and buy again.
The result was that we did not have
heavy loss to take when prices
commenced to tumble.
Free Delivery
"As l said, our business is cash,
but we give free delivery on all
orders. We have central delivery
system in Abilene, and it is more
successful than most systems. The
man in charge of it gives reasonably
good service. Then Abilene is well
supplied with paved streetS-We
have about IS miles of them-and II
is easy to cover the town with the
four wagons which he employs. He
uses mules on his wagons, and de-
livers for everybody in town. Oul
cost Of delivery is a good deal less
than we could do the work for our
selves.
81 figure that the free delivery
system helps a good deal in holding
trade in line for cash store. But
at the same time, l frankly admit
that we have no regular customers.
We have no trade which we call our
own. We win our trade from day
to day by means of the bid which
we make for business. We adver-
tise regularly in the Abilene Refiec-
tor, and they give very good run
for our money. We always adver-
below cost but always aim to make a
small margin on everything we sell.
Must Get tae Money
I'VE sell coupon books to many of
our customers at IS. This is so that
the customer can leave the coupons
for the deiiveryman. and order gro
ceries by telephone. But our rule Is
that C.. O. ID. goods shall not be left
ut the house unless the deliveryman
gets the money, or the coupons.
Some Sales Records
II do not recall now using the
word special in any of my ads. We
have, however, made sOme good rec
ords in selling. During Orange
Week we sold over 700 oranges.
Under the -four substitute rules dur
ing the war, we sold over 81 tons OF
bread in one year. Over 500 loaves
were sold in one day. At one time
we bought big lot of ginger, lemon
and vanilla snaps, in IN pound
packages. l put page advertise
ment in the Abilene Reflector, for
these little barrels Of snaps. In less
than 80 days we sold 100 dozen of
these 11a pound barrels.
"Our biggest days business up to
date was over $3.50, which we did
just at the beginning Of harvest.
without any special advertising at
all. 1t was the effect of our general