"Sales Resistance Stiffens"
By J.R. Sprague
The United States is a very rich country, but there are signs that the saturation point may be approaching. Already the most extreme efforts are necessary to force merchandise on an apathetic public. A few months ago a Texas manufacturer decided to find out how his employés were getting on in their family affairs and took the modern method of employing a corps of welfare workers to investigate. Being welfare workers of considerable tact, they managed to unearth a great deal of information without receiving violence at the hands of the families into whose domiciles they insinuated themselves. The star exhibit was a young mechanic whose family consisted of a wife and two small children. This young mechanic was receiving wages of six dollars a day. It was a very fair remuneration, considering the conditions of the community, but he was constantly in hot water. The investigation developed the following facts: The young man had engaged himself to pay thirty dollars a month in installments on a second-hand automobile. To one of the local furniture dealers he was obligated for a like amount each month in payment of a set of parlor furniture of plush and fumed oak. Beside these obligations he had taken it on himself to buy from other installment houses a piano, a gold watch, a baby carriage, a diamond ring for his wife, and various other articles. Had he met all of his installments, which he manifestly could not, his monthly payments would have amounted to more than his wages. When he haled to his employer’s private office and questioned, the young man defended himself by the surprising statement the he could not help himself.
“Everywhere I go,” he said, “someone gets after me to buy something. If I tell them I haven’t any money they say that makes no difference. I have to buy thing to keep them from worrying me!”
In the language of modern American business the young mechanic’s sales resistance yielded to efficient sales methods. [. . .]
Twenty years ago the average householder with no resources other than his salary or wages was limited in the things he could buy on installments mainly to what was sold by the furniture dealer of his home town. Today there is scarcely any luxury that he may not buy in that way, if he has an infinitesimal part of the purchase price to lay down. Even Henry Ford, our leading authority on thrift and the simple God-fearing life, is out with a million printed announcements begging school teachers, office boys and department store clerks of the land to make their savings count and buy Fords at five dollars a week. Not long ago I heard a conversation between a manufacturer in New York and a young business man who was thinking of locating a retail shop in a nearby city.
“It is a good live town all right,” said the manufacturer, “but you need a lot of capital. Competition is so keen that anybody with thirty cents can buy thirty dollars worth on credit in almost any shop in the place!”
That statement was not an exaggeration I myself had proof a week or so later, when I had occasion to visit the place of about fifty thousand inhabitants, with a number of manufacturing plants and in the center of a good farming community. The main street was ablaze with bright looking shops, among which I counted more than forty establishments that advertised installment payments Everywhere were the familiar printed slogans, “We trust the Public,” “Wear our clothes while you pay for them,” “Pick out what you want; we’ll arrange terms to suit,” “No money down.” It would be a strong minded person indeed who could walk down that main street and not be tempted to take home some article on such ridiculously easy terms. Perhaps the most striking exhibit was that of a sumptuously fitted jewelry establishment near the principal corner, where trolley cars unloaded their passengers from the suburbs and nearby towns. One of the spacious windows of this jewelry store was entirely filled with wedding rings of the latest styles, the display made gay with imitation orange blossoms and card-board figures of attractive girl brides. Marriage was made easy by this prominently shown sign: “Wedding rings, $2 down, $1 dollar a week!”
[American Mercury, February 1925]
The United States is a very rich country, but there are signs that the saturation point may be approaching. Already the most extreme efforts are necessary to force merchandise on an apathetic public. A few months ago a Texas manufacturer decided to find out how his employés were getting on in their family affairs and took the modern method of employing a corps of welfare workers to investigate. Being welfare workers of considerable tact, they managed to unearth a great deal of information without receiving violence at the hands of the families into whose domiciles they insinuated themselves. The star exhibit was a young mechanic whose family consisted of a wife and two small children. This young mechanic was receiving wages of six dollars a day. It was a very fair remuneration, considering the conditions of the community, but he was constantly in hot water. The investigation developed the following facts: The young man had engaged himself to pay thirty dollars a month in installments on a second-hand automobile. To one of the local furniture dealers he was obligated for a like amount each month in payment of a set of parlor furniture of plush and fumed oak. Beside these obligations he had taken it on himself to buy from other installment houses a piano, a gold watch, a baby carriage, a diamond ring for his wife, and various other articles. Had he met all of his installments, which he manifestly could not, his monthly payments would have amounted to more than his wages. When he haled to his employer’s private office and questioned, the young man defended himself by the surprising statement the he could not help himself.
“Everywhere I go,” he said, “someone gets after me to buy something. If I tell them I haven’t any money they say that makes no difference. I have to buy thing to keep them from worrying me!”
In the language of modern American business the young mechanic’s sales resistance yielded to efficient sales methods. [. . .]
Twenty years ago the average householder with no resources other than his salary or wages was limited in the things he could buy on installments mainly to what was sold by the furniture dealer of his home town. Today there is scarcely any luxury that he may not buy in that way, if he has an infinitesimal part of the purchase price to lay down. Even Henry Ford, our leading authority on thrift and the simple God-fearing life, is out with a million printed announcements begging school teachers, office boys and department store clerks of the land to make their savings count and buy Fords at five dollars a week. Not long ago I heard a conversation between a manufacturer in New York and a young business man who was thinking of locating a retail shop in a nearby city.
“It is a good live town all right,” said the manufacturer, “but you need a lot of capital. Competition is so keen that anybody with thirty cents can buy thirty dollars worth on credit in almost any shop in the place!”
That statement was not an exaggeration I myself had proof a week or so later, when I had occasion to visit the place of about fifty thousand inhabitants, with a number of manufacturing plants and in the center of a good farming community. The main street was ablaze with bright looking shops, among which I counted more than forty establishments that advertised installment payments Everywhere were the familiar printed slogans, “We trust the Public,” “Wear our clothes while you pay for them,” “Pick out what you want; we’ll arrange terms to suit,” “No money down.” It would be a strong minded person indeed who could walk down that main street and not be tempted to take home some article on such ridiculously easy terms. Perhaps the most striking exhibit was that of a sumptuously fitted jewelry establishment near the principal corner, where trolley cars unloaded their passengers from the suburbs and nearby towns. One of the spacious windows of this jewelry store was entirely filled with wedding rings of the latest styles, the display made gay with imitation orange blossoms and card-board figures of attractive girl brides. Marriage was made easy by this prominently shown sign: “Wedding rings, $2 down, $1 dollar a week!”
[American Mercury, February 1925]
posted by A. Mattson at 9:32 PM
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