Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 24

But I started in to tell what it was that Stigler did. That afternoon, to my surprise, I saw him in Dorman's empty store with a carpenter, measuring the floor s.p.a.ce. When he came out I was on the doorstep bidding good-by to Betty, who had dropped into the store to remind me that I was to take home some cheap kitchen knives.

"h.e.l.lo, Black," called Stigler, as he came out of the store. At the same time his lips gave that contemptuous curl which always got under my epidermis.

"h.e.l.lo, yourself, Stigler," I replied.

"Well," he said, stopping for a minute in front of me, "you and me's going to be pretty close neighbors, Black, ain't we?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've just rented old Dorman's store. You know, I think there's room in this town for a good five-and-ten-cent store, specializing on kitchen goods. This looked like a good location to me, so I'm just going to try it out. Open up the first of the month."

"Fine," I said. "Good luck to you!" putting as much heartiness into my tone as I could. And then I went into the store before my rage, and let me say, anxiety, should show themselves to Stigler.

"Gee whitakins!" I thought. "A five-and-ten-cent store, next door to me, specializing in kitchen goods, and run by Stigler!"

I knew, without his saying a word about it, that he was opening that store with the money he had just inherited from a brother out West, and that he was doing it just to try "to run me off my feet," as he had expressed it before.

I think I did the best thing I could possibly have done under the circ.u.mstances, for I went right over to Barlow's. Barlow had told me repeatedly that, any time I needed help, I should go right to him. I certainly felt that I needed the advice of an old war-horse like he was.

Somehow the fact that he was a bit old-fas.h.i.+oned and staid in his ways made him appear a rock of comfort to me.

I told him the whole story, and he certainly looked grave.

"What can I do?" I asked anxiously. "I haven't the money to fight him.

He is cutting into my profits very much as it is. Would you advise me to make a big display of five-and-ten-cent goods before he has a chance to open the store?"

"When is he going to get started?"

"Well, he said he was going to open by the first of the month."

I think for five minutes Barlow said nothing, but just see-sawed backward and forward on his swivel chair.

"What ratio would cheap kitchen goods bear to your total sales?" he finally asked.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, suppose you sell a hundred dollars' worth of goods, how many dollars' worth of that would be in five- ten- and fifteen-cent articles?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Surely you have some idea as to whether the cheap goods are the ones that sell best in your store?"

"Well, I'm sure I don't know."

Some of those old-timers' were pretty shrewd fellows after all. I had never thought of a.n.a.lyzing my sales in that way.

"Tell you what to do," he said. "Find out what proportion you are buying of five- ten- and fifteen-cent kitchen goods, and how much of the better-cla.s.s goods."

"What then?" I inquired, still in the dark.

"If your big sales are on the cheaper goods, I would advise you to make a window display of half cheap and half good articles. Put a sign in the window to the effect that you have cheap articles to sell, and good ones to use. If you find your sales are mostly on the better-cla.s.s goods, I would advise you to start an educational advertising campaign, if you can afford it."

"What is an educational advertising campaign?"

"It means advertising the better-cla.s.s goods and giving reasons and facts why they are better than the cheaper ones. Advertise that you have the low-priced articles, but, if they want the cheapest, the _best_ is the cheapest in the end. For instance, here is a ten-cent Dover egg-beater. I have one here, a gla.s.s affair, which sells at a dollar.

Actually, I am selling almost as many of the dollar egg-beaters as I do of the ten-cent ones."

"Why?"

"Because I show them that the ten-cent egg-beaters cannot last very long--they can't expect a ten-cent article to do that--but this gla.s.s one will last indefinitely; it is more sanitary; the tinning on it is very heavy and it won't rust; it is cleaner, more serviceable, easier to work," and then he gave me half a dozen more facts about that dollar egg-beater which I would never have thought of. "If you were buying an egg-beater," he continued with a smile, "which would you buy now?"

"Buy the best one unquestionably, because I can see, after what you have told me, that the other isn't to be compared with it!"

"Exactly. And if you tell those facts to your trade, they will buy the better article in just the same way."

"Then, if I am selling more of the better-cla.s.s goods than the cheaper ones, you would advise me to give Stigler the cheap business--give up the fight for it?"

"No," he returned with a smile. "Don't give up the fight, but fight him in a way that will hurt him most. That is, to educate the people away from the cheap goods."

"I see! Kind o' put him out of business by killing the demand for his goods!"

"That's the idea, and it sounds easy if you say it quickly. Candidly,"

he said, "I don't think it will hurt your business much. I wouldn't, personally, mind another hardware store opening next to me, particularly if they played the game according to Hoyle."

"But Stigler won't do it!" I cried.

Betty agreed with Barlow that the thing to do was to try to develop the sale for the better-cla.s.s articles. "For," said she, "if a woman buys a ten-cent egg-beater, you make three cents profit on it. If she buys a dollar egg-beater, you make over thirty cents profit on it, and the sale of one of those dollar articles is about equal to a dozen of the cheap ones."

"By Jove, you're right!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps Stigler's latest move to 'run me off my feet' may be the petard which will hoist him off his own; at any rate, as regards his five-and-ten-cent venture."

Naturally, I could think of nothing but Stigler and five-and-ten-cent compet.i.tion, and finally I had an idea. This idea was awfully simple--unless it proved to be simply awful.

There were in Farmdale about a dozen stores to rent. I had no thought of renting them; but I was going to see the landlords of those places and see what they would charge me to rent the _windows_ for a week! and then I'd ask Barlow to let me hire his men for an evening to trim each of those windows with the better-cla.s.s kitchen goods, and then I'd put a big sign in each window something like this: "If you want kitchen goods that wear, you'll find them at Dawson Black's." I'd have smart little talking signs worked up and put on the goods, saying why they were better than cheap articles, and asking customers to come to my store at 32 Hill Street, and we would demonstrate why it paid to get the best.

"It pays to get the best." That was to be the slogan, and I would print it on the bottom of all price tickets and talking signs!

I began to feel rather pleased that Stigler was starting that five-and-ten-cent store next to me! It seemed to have shaken me into action. I believed that, with a good window display in those empty stores for a week, I could work up a lot of business and get a lot of valuable publicity into the bargain.

When I mentioned the idea to Betty, she didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then she said very demurely:

"Dawson, you can have two more buckwheat cakes this morning."

CHAPTER XXIII

TRADING STAMPS