Thursday Dec iO'lQ®
How Customers Impose on Mer
chants
Edward J. Beck in Dearborn Weekly.
During the exceptionally hot weeks
of last Mummer, one of the large shoe
store* in Detroit found that, con
trary to expectations, the number of
women entering the store to be wait
ed on was increasing. Sultry and
rainy days are usually times of inac
tivity, but in this instance more wom
en came ! n to shop than on the temper
ate days.
But these women did not buy. The
harassed clerk often took down a doz
en pairs of shoes for a customer and
frequently none of them were found
satisfactory. Sales fell off, as they
usually did at this 'season, but the
elerks were kept busy showing mer
chandise to these feminine prospects,
x One merchant called the attention
of a fellow shoe dealer to this condi
tion, and When the shoe men generally
compared notes as they met each oth
er, it developed that during the blis
tering dhys the same state of affairs
was being repeated more or less in
all the downtown stores.
A woman entered a store, seated
herself with a sigh of relief and had
her shoe removed. She wasn’t sure
exactly what she wanted; she was
interested in the latest styles and won
dered “what they are wearing now?’’
While the clerk was taking down some
boxes, the customer removed the oth
er shoe. First, there was some dis-
about size; then there seemed
yT to be no style that suited exactly and
r flnaljy she looked at her watch and
said she had to hurry away to keep
an oppointment. She would come
back later.
Here is the explanation that was
finally found for this behavior. These
women had come in not to inspect mer-
chandise or to buy, but to rest their
feet. They had come downtown in
tight-fitting shoes, and walking On the
• hot pavements had swelled their feet
to a painful degree. So they took a
recess from their shopping and went
into the only available place whore
they could get a temporary relief
from their acute discomfort.
A woman with a belligerent mien
went into a jewelry storexwith a bun
dle and asked where the adjustment
department was. She was directed
to the third floor.
“Have you your sales slip';”
“No.”
“How much did you pay for the
set?” The woman mentioned a fig
ure. “I’ve only had the set a short
time and it’s not what I want." As
a matter of fact, she had had the set
three months.
One of the well-known principles of
this store is that "the customer is al
ways right.” The woman wasn't giv
en a chance to squabble or argue, but
was given the amount she nsked with
out further questioning. She took the
money aud went to the elevator.
A sale of silverware was going on
, -downstairs on the main floor. A'£3
J - per cent, reduction on all merchandise
V had been advertised . The woman
went over to the silverware counter
and bought another set exactly like
pile she had just returned a few
minutes before. She made a profit
of 25 per cent, and thus completed
successfully what she considered a
neat stroke of business.
The average American has a strong
sense of fair play; he expects and
gives a square deal. He is a reasona
ble fellow with whom to do business.
But every large store has a minority
of customers who take advantage of
the merchant in many ways. The
irascible customer is one of the peats
who make the life of the clerjt misera
ble. He illogically demands picfer
ential treatment and Is likely to ex
plode in an abusive display of ill tem
per on slight pretext.
„ But certain impositions of the un
reasonable and dishonest customer do
more than detract from the general
joy of Hfe. They increase the cost
of doing business and thus add to
the prices the rest of us must pay for
whiit we buy. *
Take the matter of returiied mer
chandise. One manager told me that
20 per cent, of the goods sold in his
place were later returned for credit.
Another department store official who
has studied the situation in a iltizen
different large cities estimated the per
centage to be between 15 ami 20 per
cent.'
“That's conservative,” he said. “We
had one customer who bought S-‘KiO
JAGreat Conditioner’
i *V
“Sheik *of Holly-*fejjlk
wood.and l his' jQplfT Wt
wite.'Marlon’ JjBS
Nixon,o ree n' H Kg|
star, are firm be-’ B * gi. 6. gt
llevers in plenty ‘ **
or outdoor i -x«r- ilfc B
else to keep one Ml H
in*excellent ft
physical 11 rlm I ¥ J /*■ * * t, ’ •
and ® thusHen-' K
hancejtone’S |
* •" # 'he m
work a- day [§B \ ’ .' * ‘
world k Must »- - {fr ‘
cm-’ ~ ton H'- s
can find the two g||| S '“ r ~. . ' . "■
nut for a jog on \“ r , ,* J - -
country
highway far t«- ER- ’\ r * - '7t »*“. r
moved from the zf * * * * *
s . noise and
'!• Here they K f
are, shown «on ‘ 'jT"' "
me oftheir v M J '
usu a1 J Jaunts. | fegßpMlagf & J s , J t
Bejamin?in case |BgB Wk ' »■'- *« ■'
you don't BsHj %, «- '’ _ (
Is a , promising i Is? "V J*||l • . aHBBB
boxer b in • t h e IVIBfIIBBWBr '
lightweight' dtvi-i \,
sion, J and some jgf -
day f hopes m to\
thatfiß e n n y
Leonard vacated
\ • **-y
worth last month, but her net bill was
only $24., She is an extreme and ex
ceptional example of abuse Os credit
and the return privilege.”
“How do you prevent this sort of
abuse?” I asked.
"In this store we have no set role;
our first consideration is to retain the
good will Os our customer, but some of
I the most modern stores reqnire that
the net bill shall be equal to at least
50 per cent, of the gross bill. An
other store I know about will not
withdraw credit privileges unfe.-s the
of returns is 75 per cent,
of the tptal purchases.”
The practice of promiscuously re
turning goods entails a needless ex
pense which must be borne out of the
general profits of the business. The
cost of delivery, the extra clerical
work and a double amount of book
keeping increase the overhead cost of
doing business to which all the cus
tomers must contribute.
Some customers who have accounts
in several stores order the same sort
of merchandise from each so that they
can compare the goods in their own
home._ They keep only oije article and
send back the rest. The fact that they
are inconveniencing the and
putting him to unnecessary expense
does not seem to bear any weight with
them.
Wealthy patrons are sometimes the
worst offenders in this respect. One
bookseller lias a number of rich cus
tomers who give occasional week-end
house parties at their country homos.
They order a dozen of the latest vol
umes sent out on approval. A few
days later ten of the books come back
,as- “not wanted.” Frequently half of
them bear evidence of having been read
clear through, but only two or three
are paid for.
“I can’t do anything about it,” said
the dealer, “because 1 don't dare an
tagonize such prominent people.”
“The tricky customer lncks origi
nality," said another bookman. "He’s
just like the fellow in a strange ho
tel who on retiring puts Iris money in
his shoe to prevent, robbery. He thinks
his stunt is original. If a robber did
Sneak in the first place he would look
would be in she shoe.
“Some people bring in books and
want their money back. They -have
what ,fhey think is a plausible story.
A husband or uncle or somebody has
presented them with a cop 34 of the
same identical work and so they have
110 further use for the book. Usually
they have read the book through;
that can easily be detected from the
way the book opens and by the fact
that the back of it is not quite at
l-'ght angles with the cover. They
think they have a new,yarn to fool us,
but it's old stuff. I hear it almost
every day.
“Some otherwise honest persons
seem to have a double code of moral
ity when it comes to books. Books
and inatcrmelons in a patch seem to
be on the exempt list of honesty. We
lose a lot through stealing. Our tech
nical department snffers the greatest
losses; the sturdy mechanic sees a
Vi work on motors ot a similar sub
ject, and he seemß to feel because it’s
his special find he is entitled to it
free of charge.
“In our second hand department, one
‘of the biggest, nuisances .is the man
who comes in aud makes our place a
daily reading room. We encourage
reading, but the fellow I am talking
about will hide the work that inter
ests him my putting it in the wrong
place so he can find it when he comes
back again. ' Meanwhile wc can't put
our hands on it.”
Another nuisance to the storekeep
er is tlie woman who “shops around”
without ever having any intention of
buying. Her peculiar method of
having a good time at no expense adds
to the burdens of the merchant and
causes delay for the bona fide custo
mer who has to wait until the clerk
is finished with her.
An explanation for the futile mer
cantile sight-seeing is that it flatters
the vhnity to be waited upon. Some
persons have an abnormal graving for
uUention; they' enjoy being served.
The restaurant or hotel that has a
liveried footman to open the door rec
ognizes this human weakness and ca
ters to it. The customer -who com
pels a ’clerk to take down a large as
sortment of articles and to heed her
slightest preferences thereby experi
THE CONCORD DAILY TRIBUNE «1T
ences the shallow emotions of a tem
porary supremacy. She has found a
cheap way of gratifying her egotism.
One of the ways by which dishon
est customers get credit is to estab
lish an account at two good stores,
where they promptly meet their bills.
They can then go to any other place
in town and give these firms as ref
erences. They are given a high rat
ing by. the latter and on this basis the
new store extends a liberal credit to
them. They buy as much os they can,
at as many places as theyy"an and then
disappear.
I was talking about some of the
Ways by which customers impose on
merchants with a woman executive,
who is connected with the Retail He
search Association, an organization
backed by the twelve or fifteen leading
department stores of the conntry.-
Their aim is to modernize tnerchan
dising methods by exchanging records
of experience ami to promote busi
ness by finding new and better ways
of really serving the customer. At
the time the woman was installing a
new service department in one of
the member stores in a large middle
western city. \
‘“What are yon doing to prevent
the petty impositions of the customer?"
I asked her.
“Nothing,” she replied. “We nev
er question the justice of a customer's
demand. We try to satisfy them no
matter how unreasonable they may
be.”
“Then you have a lieaping coals
of fire’ policy?”
“We re not quite so idealistic as
all that. We never ask: ‘ls the Cus
tomer right or wrong? 1 Our only con
cern is: Ts he satisfied?’ We take
back any merchandise for credit, even
if it has been used, because we believe
that any goods which the customer has
in liis home which he regrets buying
do us more harm there than if we
lost his purchase money by a refund."
“You certainly wouldn’t take back
a used toothbrush, would you?”
“Yes, we would, but as soon as the
adjuster had given back the money,
he’d throw it in the wastebasket 1 right
in front of the customer's eyes. We
never make, any remonstrances or ask
any questions until the customer has
his refund and then we may try to get
more details about the cause of the
dissatisfaction, We avoid even the
appearance of hedging on our policy.
“A woman comes !u and launches
a loud and long tirade about a trans
action. She says She’ll never trade
here again and calls us a lot of
names. Our man listens patiently un
til she has all her grievances off her
chest and then he asks: “What do
you want us to do about it?” And
whatever she says, we'll do.
“Os course, a lot or customers are
unreasonable. But when we satisfy
them they are onr best advertisement.
If they send in a small sample of cal
ico for matching and want us to get
them 10 cents worth of it, we will if
necessary put a $25-a-week shopper
on a whole afternoon's shopping tour
to find what she wants, provided we
w*.„ it’s Christmas Eve—and the glisten- |
ing tree is ready and trimmed c with gifts and toys —when
the peace and good cheer of Christmas are almost here
o —have a Camel!
EftHTSfe'/* WHEN the happy work of Christmas Eve is
done. And the clock calls the approach of
lidk midnight. When the gifts and toys are in their
■/ A place on the children's tree — hare a Catncl!
For to those who think of others there is no
!*&%*'s*s* other gift like Camel. Camel makes every great
day greater,'increases the gladness in giving, |8
H makes life’s anticipations brighter. Before ntf.
Camel, no cigarette ever was so good. Camels SBmß||vV Jl
r \ 'aBK "" are made of such choice tobaccos, are so skilfully
$ mdmm klended, that they never tire the taste, or leave
Bf \ a cigaretty after-taste. Into the making of this MeL. .
Tjk | -a* ib 4| one cigarette goes all of the skill of the largest W
■. V tobacco organization in the world. Bw IMT jf. -
S° on this Christmas Eve, when your work H
BBx \ ®JP for others is done—when you're too glad for T /jJB/BkJ Jwl
■L s^ee P thoughts of tomorrow’s happiness,
■gk oh, then—taste the smoke that every day brings JBj
Jr / contentment to so many millions. Know the k B
' mellowest mildness, the most rich and fragrant
K taste that ever was put into a cigarette. Qixl.
* Have a Camel Tfr '
Comets represent the utmost in cigarette quality. The choicest of Turkish and * - It is wellto remember your few closest friends
domestic tobaccos are blended into Cemels by master blenders and the finest of ' / 4 with a supply of Camels for Christmas Day
French cigarette paper is made especially for them. Our highest wish, if you do
not yet know Comet quality, is that you try them. Ve invite you to compare Camels JT cartons now and then they wdl be readyl
with any ctgaretse made at ayy price. / R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co,
0
haven’t it.. A woman wrote in
a suburb and Mid she wanted some
genuine cotton bolls foe a wedding
anniversary. She said she knew we
didn’t have such things, but asked us
to get them anyhow. We wrote to
some Texas connections of ours and
they finally found what the woman
wapted, qfter scouring the whole city
of Waco. We wrote the woman that
she had set us to a difficult task, be
cause cotton was out of season and
the new harvest was some months
ahead. And we told her in detail how
.whole would benefit,
we had gone about filling her request.
I’ll venture to say that every person
at that party heard about our unusual
efforts; and we got advertising we
could have procured in no other way
because the story of those cotton bolls
was interesting and worth telling;
j “A woman telephoned in from a
country town 40 miles out and said
she had to attend a funeral that after
noon and 'had no black shoes good
enough to wear. She gave the size
and asked us to hurry some out. An
utterly unreasonable request—but in
20 minutes we had a special messenger
with the shoes in a taxi on the way
to the station? He missed the train
and then took an interurban, arriv
ing just ahead of the required time.
“A doctor telephone in on the fifth
of "July and said he was just going to
perform an operation and had found
that his electric fan had been stolen
over the Fourth. He wanted another
at once and was very particular about
the make. We didn’t have the make
he insisted on. TlTen he made the
unreasonable request that we loan him
one of ours until he could buy a dup
licate-of the stolen one. In 10 min
utes we had a fan on the way by
special messenger. Before the boy
reached there, a colleague in a neigh
boring office came in with the doctor’s
fan. He had borrowed it.”
The store at which this executive
is working is one of the most profita
ble mercantile enterprises in the
United States. The owners have bulk
up their business on the theory that
“the public is always right” and their
attitude of Tolstoyan nonresistauce to
the unreasonable demands of the cus
tomer lias apparently been a reman-*
erative one. The same principle, I
was told, governed the leading stores
in Boston, Cleveland, New York, St.
'Louis and other large cities.
But prices would come down to a
certain extent if we who constitute the
buying public would let our relations
with the merchant be governed by the
principles of fair play and the square
deal. The cost of storekeeping would
be reduced and the consumers ns a
"Bridget, who -oroke this iron
kettle?”
“The cat. mum.”
“But I don’t keep a. cal on ac
count of the canary.”
“Then it must have been the
canary.”
Copijer poisons have been found in
ten per cent of the "bootleg” liquids
that have been analyzed in Massa-
Equa!Dfstance from Pemsylyanks
and Grand Centra i Stations.
-..Brepactway at 63rd St..*
' go o *' 1 T °U-Et
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ACHING UTS,
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USE PENNY .COLUMN—IT PAYS
Prince or Peasant.
Paris, Dec. 9.—One of the most
amazing of royal mysteries has just
been recalled by 'the one hundredth
anniversary of the death of Czar
Alexander 1., of Russia. After Alex
ander’s “death” on December 1, 1825,
it was romored that an empty coffin
had been lowered into the earth in the
imperial burial place, and that the
Czar was spending the evening of his
days in prayer and contemplation.
Popular unbelief, indeed, identified
a hermit calling himself Fedor Kus
mitch, with the late monarch. Kus
milch, \fcJiose past life was a complete
mystery, appeared about this time in
the depths of the Siberian forest. He
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was frequently visited by the Czar
Nicholas 1., who treated him with the
most profound respect.
If Kusmitch was really Alexander
1,, he carried his secret with hiqi to
the grave. But a new turn was
given to speculation on the subject
three years ago, when the tombs of
the Czars were opened by order of
the Soviet authorities.’ The original
seals on the coffin of Alexander I.
were still intact, but when opened
there was nothing in it but a few
lumps of lead.
The largest covered Ice rink in
Europe has just been opened in Ber-
PAGE NINE
N 6 Brandy Available. fj
Kinston, Dec. 9.—TWre cMoted
Christmas will be the gloomiest til
one respect that two generations off
Lenoir countains have experiencefy
Eggnogg is not good without btnndßf
and old-timers declare there is BOtf
a drop to be had in the county ifokC
the first time in 200 years. I
Age in racehorses is always recltony
ed from the January of the year lot
which the horse is born. A horse,E
therefore, which was bora at the
ginning of December would be dfpßS
dow r n as a year old the following!
January, even though he had only!
been in this world a month. 1