PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE
As soon as possible, I visited the landlords of all the empty stores in
town, and contracted to rent the windows in seven of them for two weeks
beginning the first of October.
Two of the stores I couldn't get because they had been rented for the
first of October; one I didn't go to at all because I remembered,
fortunately, in time, that the landlord was a friend of Stigler's. If I
had told him what I wanted, the probabilities were that Stigler would
have got wind of it and he would somehow have got ahead of me.
The total expense was less than twenty dollars. Two stores I got for
nothing, and I found out that Barlow owned them. The old brick had told
his agent to let me have them for two weeks without any cost. Traglio,
the druggist, let me have the vacant store next door to him, which he
owned, for $2.00 a week, on the understanding that I would not display
any toilet articles, and that I would put a card in the window, at my
own expense, reading: "For toilet articles of all kinds go to
Traglio's." I didn't think that would hurt me any, so I promised to do
it. It cost me $12.00 for the old Bon Marche store, but that was right
opposite the post office, and I thought it well worth the money, because
everybody in town would see the displays there. Besides, they were big
windows. It had been a prosperous store, but Waldron, who ran it, had
lost his money in a big Providence bank failure.
When I had got it all done the question came to me, What am I going to
do for stock? It would be difficult to put a lot of stock in those
windows to make a real display and still have left in the store any of
the lines to sell. I worried over this for some time, and then I wrote
to Hersom, the salesman for Bates & Hotchkin of Boston, the jobbers from
whom I bought the bulk of my general supplies, and told him about my
plan, and asked him if he could help me out. They were pretty decent
people, and while I had to pay a fraction more for the majority of the
goods than if I had bought from the manufacturer it was well worth it to
me, for they looked after me well. As Hersom had told me, the last time
he had called, "We certainly will do all we can for you, because you
give us the bulk of your business." . . .
Coincidences do happen even in a little town. The electric light company
had been making a big campaign in the town, advocating the use of
electricity for lighting, cooking, ironing, etc. The advertising
certainly had made the gas company sit up and take notice, for they had
offered to wire houses for a ridiculously small amount, with easy terms
of payment, and in a large percentage of the houses they had begun to
use electricity instead of gas. For some time I had been thinking of
taking advantage of this fact, and putting in a stock of electric
toasters and grills, perhaps an electric fan or so, and a few electrical
devices like that.
Well, I happened to meet Mrs. Twombley in the street. Mrs. Twombley was
a close friend of the Mater's. She was a widow, like Mater, and they
had been schoolgirls together, and Mrs. Twombley had been one of the
episodes of my father's period of calf love. Mrs. Twombley was a big,
plump, jolly-looking woman, well to do, and she was quite fond of me.
The last time she had been at the house she had said to the Mater, as
she rumpled my hair--she did that every time she came because she knew I
didn't like it--"It was just nip and tuck as to whether I would have
been Dawson's mother, wasn't it?"
She was passing on the other side of the street, and, seeing me, she
frantically waved her umbrella at me--she always carried an umbrella,
whatever the weather might be. I went across to her, and she told me she
wanted a dozen kitchen knives.
"I don't know what Lucy does with them," she said. "I think she must be
engaged to a sword swallower and he is practicing with my knives."
Then she added: "By the way, Dawson, I have never asked you to do
anything for me, have I?"
"No," I replied, wondering what she meant.
"Well, young man, I am going to make a suggestion to you that may cost
you a few dollars. Our fair for Foreign Missions takes place, as you
know, next month, and you are going to help us out."
"In what way?"
"Bless the boy, I don't know! Look around your store and see if there
isn't something you don't want; or else send some things up and give us
a commission for selling them. See what you can do about it." And she
bustled off without waiting for an answer.
And now for the coincidence. When I got back to the store there was an
unusually smart-looking chap waiting to see me. It seemed he
represented the Atlantic Electric Appliance Corporation, and they wanted
me to take the agency for their full line of electric appliances.
"Your line is a good thing, I'm sure," I said to him--Wilkshire was his
name--"but, candidly, I couldn't afford to put in a full supply of those
things, although I was thinking of starting with a few toasters and one
or two things of that kind."
"I can understand, Mr. Black," was his response, "that you couldn't very
well carry the whole line that we have, unless we worked with you on it.
We believe there's a big field in Farmdale for electric
appliances--better than usual on account of what the electric light
company's doing to boost things.
"Our proposition is this: If you will make a special display of
electrical appliances for a week we'll supply you with a full line of
our goods, we'll send a demonstrator to show how they are worked, and we
will go fifty-fifty on any advertising you care to do during that time.
"When the demonstration is over, go ahead and stock up what you think is
necessary, and we'll undertake to supply you with additional stock on
twenty-four hours' time. You are not such a great way from
Hartford"--that was their headquarters--"and, if you order one day, you
can have the goods right here within forty-eight hours at the latest."
Just then the telephone bell rang. Larsen answered it, and I heard him
say:
"Yes, Mrs. Twombley, he's back. I'll tell him."
I went to the 'phone, and she wanted me to be sure not to forget about
helping them out at the fair. "Remember," she reminded me, "it starts
Tuesday, the twelfth of October, and ends the Saturday following."
"Mrs. Twombley," I replied, "an idea has come to me. How would you like
me to supply you with an electrical exhibition?"
"Bless the boy! What do you mean?"
"How would you like me to make a display up there of all kinds of
electrical appliances, with some pretty girls to show everybody how they
work and what they will do?"
"That would be splendid! But there's no electricity in the town hall."
"But suppose I can get electric current run in there specially, what
then?"
"My! don't disrupt the town management on my account--but do it if you
can."
"All right. I think I can do it for you."
Well, I talked to Mr. Wilkshire, and told him my idea, and he thought it
was a good one, and said he would personally go and see the electric
light company, because he was accustomed to dealing with that kind of
people, and make arrangements to have wires carried into the town hall
for the exhibition.
He agreed to supply all the equipment needed and to send two
demonstrators from Hartford during the five days of the fair, and that
was to be my contribution to Mrs. Twombley's "pet," as she called
foreign missions; and, at the same time, I would be introducing a new
line of merchandise, under the very best of auspices, to the people of
Farmdale.
When I talked to Betty about the electrical exhibition she suggested:
"Why not carry it through a little farther. I read a lot in _Hardware
Times_ about business efficiency. Why don't you try to get efficiency in
the home--give an exhibition of home efficiency?"
I guess the blank expression on my face told her that I didn't follow
her meaning.
"I mean," she said, "along with the electrical devices why not show
carpet sweepers and time-saving kitchen devices, and everything that
will help the woman of the house to greater efficiency in her work, or
give her better results. Make a big exhibition, and call it the domestic
efficiency exhibition."
"That's not a bad idea at all," I replied. I thought a little while.
"Not a bad idea at all." I thought a little bit longer. "It's a bully
good idea!" And I ran right off to call up Mrs. Twombley.
"Mrs. Twombley," I cried, quite excited, "I'm going to do that thing up
good and brown for you. I'm going to make it a household efficiency
exhibition, and we'll have vacuum cleaners and carpet sweepers and
washing machines and kitchen things--"
"Good heavens above!" her voice returned. "Who is this speaking, what is
he speaking about, and has he got the right party?"
When I explained the matter, she said:
"I don't know, I'm sure, but I'll leave it to you--"
"Are you sure," asked Betty, when I came back, "that the electric-supply
people will agree to your selling other things there, when they are
providing the material for the big show?"
"I never thought of that!" I exclaimed. "I guess they won't! No. And I
don't think now it would be fair to them to do it, for, if I want to
sell electrical supplies, it would probably be better not to spread the
attraction over too many things. No, I'll confine myself just to
electrical supplies, so as to make as big an impression with them as I
can, concentrate the people's attention right on them, and give them a
real bang-up start-off.
"That reminds me, Betty. You know those Sisk glass percolators? I'm
going to drop them."
"Why, I thought you were selling so many of them!"
"Yes, I am, but I got a letter from them yesterday telling me that the
discount had been reduced from 40 to 25 per cent., and there's nothing
doing at that price."
"I wish you wouldn't talk such slang."
"What do you mean, slang?"
"Why, 'nothing doing.' I wish you would learn to cut it out. There," she
said vexedly, "I'm catching that bad habit from you!"
To come back to that Sisk percolator. I had been handling it for some
time and doing a good business on it, when a letter had come saying that
on and after that date the discount for Sisk percolators would be
reduced to 25 per cent. As it was costing me about 25 per cent. to do
business, I decided not to handle them after I got rid of what I had,
and I wrote them so right away. You see, I was beginning to study the
relationship of profit to expense, and, unless the things I sold were
showing me a profit, either directly or indirectly, there was nothing
doing on them--I would not bother with them at all. I had told the Sisk
people that perhaps they could find some one else to handle them for
love of the company, but that I would not.
My letter got results, and got them quickly. I had a nice letter from
them stating that they realized that I couldn't handle the goods unless
I made a fair profit on them, and so they had decided to increase the
discount from 25 to 33â
per cent. Since they were willing to come up
on the discounts I was quite willing to push the percolators, and I
wrote them and told them so, and sent them an order for half a dozen
more right away.
In the same mail I had an answer from Bates & Hotchkin. Hersom was out
of town; but they said they were glad to help me out, and would send me
enough stuff to fill up the windows and have some left over for the
store, and would I please let them know just what I wanted and they
would send it on consignment right away. It was good to deal with a
concern that would go out of its way to do you favors.
The Mater was at the house that evening, and I was telling about the
Sisk percolator matter. Suddenly she said:
"Really, those Sisk persons are remarkably clever, don't you know! I
believe it was their plan to reduce the discount from 40 to 33â
per
cent., and they studied the psychology of the matter and decided
that--and I think you will agree with me, Dawson--that, had they merely
written, in the first place, announcing that the discounts were reduced
from 40 to 33â
per cent., their customers would feel annoyed at the
reduction of their profits. But, instead, they reduced the discount to
25 per cent., unquestionably with the purpose of _increasing_ it to
33â
per cent., thus leaving with their customers the impression that
the discounts had been increased instead of reduced, going on the
psychological principle that the last impression made upon the mind is
the strongest."
Remarkably clever, I thought! I believed the Mater was right. Because,
even when I knew it, I hadn't any ill feeling against the company.
It was very keen of the Mater to spot it. I had never suspected she was
so shrewd.