Evening star., 1933-07-30
Quality Will Replace Price as
Competitive Basis, Ex.
pert Predicts.
FEAR OF RESTRICTIONS
SCORED AS DEFEATISM
Highest Trade Ideals and Service
Will Count More Than Ever,
Ben Nash Declares.
BY JOHN A. CRONE.

Special Dispatch to The Star
NEW YORK, July 29.-Under the
revolutionary national industrial re-
covery act, old marketing fundamentals,
far from falling into disuse and obso-
lescence, now take on added impor-
tance, according to Ben Nash, product
and merchandising counselor Sheer
price competition will be replaced by
quality and service competition, he be-
lieves
There are a great many business
men today" said Mr. Nash in an ex-
elusive interview here. who believe
that the national industrial recovery
act tends to make it absurd and futile
for any individual company to enter
into aggressive marketing measures.
This attitude is promised on the
belief that the new legislation might
restrict competition SO severely as ac-
tually to place premium on inefh-
cheney and penalize quality. In other
words, these men reason, if you legalize
quality and restrict competition all
along the line, it obviously is not pcs
position Of progressive superiority
or for any company to fall too far be-
hind, however inferior its methods and
its products.
These men are undoubtedly sincere
IN this attitude, but to arrive at an
attitude of such profound defeatism on
such dimsy basis is absurd
Price Cutting Halted.
Nov, what really has happened and
what is going to happen? There is, of
G. II, |0rrk -
character and functioning of business
under the national industrial recovery
act. But this much seems certain:
The outstanding feature of the new
legislation, aside from its immediate
objective of putting men back to work
and creating buying power, is that it
definitely projects business structure
in. which sheer price ceases to be the
most important of business agencies.
In, other words, price-cutting is about
to become pretty difficult proposition.
why the fear. than? Business men
who are prophesying the doom of SELL
ing advantages by virtue of the new
legislation are really in effect admitting
a profound weakness. Deprived of the
power of unbridled price-cutting, they
md themselves impotent to achieve
progress.
Il think the new legislation offers to
individual companies an unprecedented
opportunity for progress and profit I
think we are going to see the rise of
new basis Of business operations In
the process it is inevitable that we shall
see number of business names now in
the public eye lose their fore positions
to other names, those of men alert to
the present prescribed conditions.
From now on the business race Is
not to the fanciest price-cutter. but to
the business man OF the highest moral
calibsr, possessed of the highest busi-
ness ideals, the greatest business i2-
genuity, the greatest abundance of pro-
motion ideas In other words. strange
as it may seem, I believe that hence
aglnation to stay in business and make
progress. Are the men who are bewail-
ing the new legislation afraid?
New Fields Opened.
with prices in each industry rela-
lively stabilized, with prices for COM
parable goods generally equal, with
price-cutting out of the picture, the
competitive advantage within a given
companies which ceaselessly seek to
make their products more attractive to
the consumer and are more adroit in
sales methods.
From which it is just, I think, to
draw the conclusion that at least one
of the old business doctrines-attractiv
products and selling methods-will have
plenty of validity in the new scheme of
things. suppose it really comes down
to this: You can equalize the condi-
tions, wages and hours of labor, you can
equalize prices and you can equalize
general terms of competition, but you
cannot equalize or stabilize a business
mans progressive ideas. Competitive
advantage through ideas will be the
vital factor in business.
(Copyright, 1887