New-York tribune., 1922-05-21

departments recently, but demand for-
such goods viii have to take pfs~
jump before these departments come
back to what we consider normal.
4 Bright Spot
Gone of the brightest spots in the
store is that devoted to housefurnish-
ings, such as rugs. furniture. house
hold appliances, etc. This undoubted-
building, but it must be remembered
that these departments were exceed
ingly dull until the last few months,
so, spread over a long period Of time.
our profits from these departments
have not been what they should kzve
been"
The apparel departments, which
usually are among the most profitable
in the store, are not showing their
usual profits now, in the opinion of
several department store executives.
The situation there is one of great
complexity. Prices have been cut, ac-
cording to these executives, until the
retailers, wholesalers and manufactur-
ers all have sacrificed almost all Of
their profits.
"To illustrate" said the head of
store that deals almost exclusively in
women's apparel, 1--WE put on a sale re-
Gently in order to ginger up business,
and actually lost money on it. The
buyer in one of our departments, who
found general trade a bit slow, secured
the market for special She found
manufacturer who was willing TO fore
go his profit and sell US large guam
tity of certain article at ST. 65 apiece.
We put it on sale at 81 .95 apiece. 1t
was an excellent value and we adver-
tised it widely. The response was dis
appointing. More advertising was done,
and before we finished the sale we
discovered that our advertising costs
and overhead had more than eaten up
our profits.
Nov it is almost impossible to in
duce any volume buying on the part
OF our customers without such gpe-
clai inducements. Volume can be
gained only by price cutting and heavy
advertising. and such procedure is
not profitable"
Special Inducements
Unemployment, heavy income taxes
and the fact that people have been
educated to economize more than
formerly are given as reasons for the
fact that special inducements must be
made by the retailer to get his Gus
1oAt'SAS W UNy SOVOb III SUFFICIENT Quan-
titles to keep the big mercantile estab-
llshments running.
|, Il don't have to 60 out of the store"
said an executive, "to get line on the
general trend among our customers or
to explain the lack Of snap to our
trade. We employ 500 or more sales
people in our establishment. During
the war we gave them O bonus averag-
ing $40 week apiece above their sal
aries in order to keep them from GO
ing to some other employment. That
has been eliminated. There, alone, our
employees have lost combined pur-
chasing power Of $1,000 week Think
what that means multiplied by all the
stores in town and by other institu-
tions that did the same thing.
THAT is only one phase of the mat
ter. l am just an average man and
think pretty much as the mass of
people do. l want to buy q new car
for my personal use. The kind of car
want cost, before the war, about S5,-
900. 1t is now about $500. II it were
$4,000 or even $1,000 probably would
buy it. At the same time the factory
making that car is almost completely
closed down, and most Of it's workers
are out of employment. Undoubtedly
that affects the retail stores in that
town. Now, it is the cumulative effect
of such things that is making the re-
tail game. pretty hard for all of US.
Conditions are improving. l am told,
but they will have to improve a great
deal more before retailing returns to
normal"