Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 12

As he turned to leave I held out my hand and said, with the best grace I could:

"I reckon I made a bit of a fool of myself, Mr. Peck. I want to thank you for your help to me."

His handclasp as he said good-by was a good, hearty one, and I felt I had a real friend in that credit manager.

CHAPTER XIII

A NEW KIND OF LOTTERY

I had thought out a novel way to fight the mail-order compet.i.tion. It had come to me from an article I had read in a magazine about how a druggist in a small town in the Middle West had practically eliminated mail-order compet.i.tion--at least temporarily--in his town. I decided immediately to try it. Betty says I am always too impetuous. When I reviewed what happened, I was uncertain whether I had done myself good or harm; but one thing was certain--I surely did get a lot of publicity!

After I had read that article in the magazine, I said to myself: "Now, that's reasonable. If people haven't got a mail-order catalog, they won't buy from the mail-order house. Why didn't I think of that before?

If I get this mail-order catalog, I take away from them the thing that makes it easy for them to buy."

In the lower corner of the ad I had a picture and description of the talking machine, set off by a border.

Then I had two men march about the town with boards across their shoulders, on which were painted,

"DAWSON BLACK'S MAIL-ORDER CATALOG CONTEST. TAKE A CHANCE! SEE THE NEWSPAPERS!"

This is the ad I put in both our papers:

HAVE YOU A SPORTING INSTINCT?

If so, take a few chances on winning a phonograph.

These chances are free.

Bring your mail-order catalogs to us. In return for each catalog you will receive a numbered coupon.

A drawing will take place in our window next Monday at 7:30 p. m., when one of the coupons will be drawn by a blindfolded person from a tub in which all the coupons will be placed.

The number of the coupon drawn will be the winning number, and the holder of it will receive the talking machine absolutely free.

The machine may be seen in our window, or at the Farmdale Furniture Store.

I had only a few days between the announcement of the contest and the time for the drawing, because I thought, if the time were longer, people would write to the mail-order houses for catalogs so as to enter them in the contest.

I didn't know just what the effect would be, but I did know there was a lot of money going out of the town to the mail-order houses.

The avalanche started the next morning. Before we opened the store there was a line of youngsters outside, each carrying from one to six catalogs. Great big fellows, they were, many of them.

As they came into the store, we pa.s.sed out coupons, each one numbered separately. A boy bringing in two catalogs got two coupons, and so on.

All the week we had catalogs rolling in. Some of them were ten years old. I didn't know there were so many mail-order houses. By the looks of many of the catalogs they had been frequently used.

One funny incident occurred. Mrs. Robinson, whom everybody swore was the original woman with the serpent's tongue--she could never see good in anything or anybody--came into the store in high indignation, saying that her little boy, Wallace, had, without her permission, collected her four mail-order catalogs and had turned them into the store for coupons, and she demanded that I give the catalogs back.

I explained to her that I didn't know which catalogs were hers. She replied that I had catalogs from all the mail-order concerns, and I must give her one of this and one of that and one of another, or otherwise she would make trouble for me!

I had had so many people talking big to me lately that I was getting up a fighting spirit. I turned around to her and said:

"I'm sorry I can't comply with your request. If you have anything else to say, please say it. If not, good-by!"

Gee whiz! what that woman did say! Anyway, she left the store after a while, and didn't get her catalogs. She had never spent a penny with me, and never would. She was a relation of Stigler's, and I had a "hunch"

that he had put her up to it.

Stigler had been telling all around town that I was afraid of mail-order compet.i.tion because my prices were higher, and that that was why I was collecting the catalogs. He said he didn't care how many catalogs people had, he could hold his own with compet.i.tion.

I met Barlow one lunch time and he came over and put his hand on my shoulder, saying:

"You put the cat among the pigeons this time, didn't you?"

"Why?" I replied.

"Well, everybody is talking about your buying up mail-order catalogs."

"I am not buying them up."

"Same thing," he grinned. "You are surely getting a lot of publicity from it, though. Some people think it's a mighty clever trick, others think it's a mean trick, some others think you are scared. Well, they are talking about you, at any rate. Good luck to you! Go carefully, however."

Well, we had mail-order catalogs stacked up in every corner. I arranged with a junkman to buy them at quite a fair price, and, to my utter surprise, I got enough money from the sale of those catalogs to pay for the cost of the machine and a little bit over towards the advertising!

I was mighty glad I had arranged with the furniture store to display the machine, for Martin, the proprietor, said he had crowds of people looking at it. There was a sign on it saying, "This machine will be given free by Dawson Black to the person drawing the winning coupon in the mail-order catalog contest."

Stigler said that the whole thing was illegal, and came under the gambling law, but nothing was done about it, and I knew that, if it was illegal, Stigler would have found some way of getting at me on it.

One thing was sure--the town did not have many mail-order catalogs in it after the contest. I had a big bunch of valuable advertising from it--at least, I thought it was valuable.

For some time Stigler had been telling around town what he was going to do to me. I had heard he had made the remark that he was going to cut the heart out of me, and he surely tried to, for, whenever I had anything in my window or advertised in the papers, he immediately turned around and sold the same article at a lower price. Whenever I had found him doing this, I had immediately cut down below him, and many things I had to sell below cost. But I didn't see any help for it--I couldn't let him get ahead of me on prices like that. I felt that I had to follow his lead wherever he went, and trust to making my profit out of other things. But it surely was heartbreaking to have a fellow like that bucking me.

One day, Rob Sirle, the editor of _Hardware Times_ called on me. He said he had heard about my stunt for beating the mail-order people and he wanted to know about it.

I told him all about it, but somehow he didn't seem very much impressed.

He didn't say much about it, but I remembered that some one had remarked to me at the convention that he never spoke about anything unless he could boost it.

I told him about Stigler and the price-cutting contest that was then on between us.

"I'll tell you what you want to do to beat that," said he. "You put goods in your window to-morrow morning and mark them at exact invoice price. Wait until friend Stigler has put the same goods in his window at less than cost, and then as soon as he has done it, remove your price tickets. If any one comes in to buy them, sell them only at regular price, except, of course, if they come in while the cut price is marked on them. You can well afford to let Stigler sell all the goods he wants at below cost price, because the more he sells the more quickly he will eliminate himself as a compet.i.tor.

"Every day you can put a new line in the window. I don't think it will be very long before he gives up the foolish task of cutting his own throat. I always compare the price-cutter," he said musingly, "with a hog which cuts its own throat as it swims. That is just what the indiscriminate price-cutter does. He cuts his own throat first. I never saw a price-cutter yet who had a real, solid business. People are wise these days, you know. You offer anything at less than cost price and people flock to buy it; but it doesn't mean that they are necessarily going to buy other goods at the same time. No, sir! They'll buy the cut-price goods from the cut-price store, but they'll buy the regular goods at a regular price from the store which offers them courteous service in place of cut-price chicanery!"

I at once decided to follow his advice.

I happened to mention to him that I went to Boston quite often. He asked me if I knew Barker, the hardware man there. "Quite a big man in the hardware trade," said he. "You ought to meet him. Here," and he wrote me a card of introduction, "next time you go to Boston, drop in and see him. If you ever get into any difficulty he's just the man to help you."