Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 42

"I don't think," said Martin, "we ever ought to say 'nothing else'?

Because the natural thing for the customer to say is 'no.'"

"By Jove, you're right. I should have said, 'Anything else,' shouldn't I?"

"That I think would be better," continued Martin, "but even that puts up to the customer the burden of thinking if there is anything else wanted.

It would be better to suggest some articles. That is, of course, applying the law of a.s.sociation."

"I see," said Jones thoughtfully, "I should have suggested she buy clothes pins before I let her go."

"Yes, and other things."

"Well," said Jones, "I don't see anything else I could have suggested to her, except that electrical washing machine we have got in, but it's sixty-five dollars, and people won't pay that price for it."

La.r.s.en snapped him up at that very quickly, saying, "Do you think, Jones, that you know more about washing machines than the people do who make them? Do you think those people would be such fools as to set a price that people wouldn't pay for them? We've only had it in a couple of weeks. No wonder we can't sell it, if we don't _think_ we can.

Wetherall's quite a well-to-do young fellow, and he could afford to buy that for his wife if she wanted it, especially as she can buy it on the easy payment plan."

I had bought this washing machine on the understanding that I could sell it at the rate of ten dollars down and five dollars a month, and pay them at the same rate for it.

Then Jones said, "Huh, I suppose I didn't do a blame thing right in that sale. Well, I guess you can't kick at my sending the parcel home for her. That little booklet we got out said we were 'long' on service."

"I guess you're all right there," I said, smiling. "What do you say, Martin?"

"Why, yes, of course," responded Martin. "It is fine to give service."

Then, as if it were an afterthought, he added, "I wonder if it would have made any difference if instead of saying 'Shall we send it?' you had said, 'Will you take it with you?' Most people act on the suggestion that is given. That is why, when we suggest to people to buy goods that are a.s.sociated with what they ask for, we put the thought of buying those a.s.sociated articles into their minds."

"And," broke in Jimmie impetuously, "they fall for it. I got yer!"

We all had a good laugh, and then continued the discussion of the law of a.s.sociation. We decided that, whenever a man came in for a hammer, we would always suggest nails, and vice versa. To every one who bought a razor we would suggest shaving appliances. If a customer came in for some paint, we would suggest brushes, and ask if he was going to paint the barn, and, if so, whether he wanted some new door hangers, and such like.

I told Martin that he had better make a list on cards of the articles which can be a.s.sociated with each other, and then we could tack up the cards where we could see them and quickly suggest the a.s.sociated articles to the customer.

"I tell yer what," said Jimmie, "let's have a lot of cards printed, and then, if a carpenter comes in, shove out a card at him and say, 'Look through this and see what else you want'?"

That didn't strike me as being such a bad suggestion after all.

The second plan for increasing sales was to suggest novelties, or new articles in stock, to customers.

"Look what we did with that Cincinnati pencil sharpener," said La.r.s.en.

"Do you remember how we mentioned that to every one who came in, and we sold a bunch of 'em."

"And they're still selling, for I sold three last week," said Martin.

"Gosh," said Jimmie, "everybody must be giving 'em to everybody else for presents."

"I don't think," said Martin, "we have anything like exhausted the sales possibilities of those pencil sharpeners, and I am going to suggest that we make that our novelty suggestion for the next week. What do you say, Mr. Black?"

I shook my head dubiously. "We seem to have pushed those so much," I said, "I should think there would hardly be a novelty here now."

"There has not been one on display for a couple of months," he answered, "and we have about half a dozen in stock. Let's put those around the store in different parts and then put a little card over each one saying, 'Sharpen your pencil.' I will wager that every man who comes into the store will sharpen his pencil, and if he does--"

"And if he does," the irrepressible Jimmie broke in "good-by pencil sharpener, you're going to a new home!"

A thought had occurred to me which developed into the third method of increasing sales. I had remembered that, when Betty and I were in New York, she had lost her handkerchief, and we went into a store to get one. When Betty said she wanted one handkerchief, the girl brought out one and said, "Ten cents. Anything else?" I had thought at the time that she could have sold Betty half a dozen just as well as one, and, furthermore, if she had brought out one at twenty-five cents Betty would have bought it just as readily.

Then I remembered how often we did the same thing with our customers, to whom, when they came for a pocket-knife, for instance, we offered a twenty-five cent one when we might have sold a fifty-cent or a dollar one just as easily. I said to myself, "A number of our customers will go into a restaurant and spend two dollars for a meal and then they will come into our store and we will insult them by saying, 'Do you want the five-cent size or the ten-cent size?' In other words, we treat them like pikers."

So with this thought in mind, I suggested that another way to increase the amount of each sale is to suggest higher-priced goods than the customer has in mind. Yet another plan would be to suggest larger size packages. For instance, we sold both ten- and twenty-five-cent packages of some articles. Once a customer had come in and asked for a stick of shaving soap and Jones had brought down the ten-cent size and the customer put the ten cents down and walked away with the soap. He might just as easily have been sold the twenty-five-cent size.

So we decided that, when a customer asked for an article, if there was a larger size package, or a better quality, we would always show the largest or the best, taking care, however, in every case to show reasons why the better quality or larger package was best for the customer to buy.

From all this we finally developed three rules. One was to offer higher-priced articles, another to offer a larger size package, and another to offer a larger quant.i.ty.

Jimmie asked irreverently, "What's the diff between them last two?"

"Well, for instance, we sell scouring soaps for enamelware, and, as we have two sizes, we always want now to sell the larger package. If, however, a customer comes in for, say, seven pounds of nails, we want him to take twenty-eight pounds, or a keg, if we can."

The last rule was one suggested by Martin, and it was this: Always watch the customer's eye, and try to sell any article in which he appears to be interested.

We decided that we must not ask the customers if they were interested in the articles they are looking at, nor must we bring the articles to them, but we must casually say, "That's quite an interesting so-and-so, and is proving a mighty useful little thing," or some such remark as that. In other words, just make a casual comment on it, and then, as Martin said, "If they respond with a remark expressing interest, the sale is half made."

I really felt that Martin had, in his quiet way, dominated the whole of this meeting, but he had done it so neatly, and without in any way trying to overstep my authority, that I really felt that he had been a lot of help to us without making his show of knowledge obnoxious. I really believed Martin knew more about retail merchandising than all of us put together. What he had done was to suggest that it _might_ be a good idea to do such and such a thing, instead of arrogantly thrusting his knowledge on us by saying we _ought_ to do so. He was a clever man, Martin, and Barlow's son was lucky to have a fellow like him for a friend. I wished I could tie him up to my store somehow, but, of course that would be impossible in a little store like mine, for there were no prospects for a young fellow like him. . . .

The day after our meeting I saw the cleverest example of selling that I had ever seen. Probably it was old, but it was surely new to me, and the man got a small order from me, too.

About 10:30 in the morning, a well-dressed, jolly-looking man came into the store. I was busy serving at the time. In fact, we all were busy, but La.r.s.en was disengaged first and so he asked what he could do for him.

"How do you do?" said the stranger, smiling. "I've got a message to tell Mr. Black," and he nodded toward me.

"He'll be free in a few minutes," said La.r.s.en.

"Thank you," replied the salesman. Then, noticing a display of electrical goods which we had on one of our center tables, he said, "The man who dressed that table knows something about display, doesn't he?"

"I did it," said La.r.s.en.

"Oh, I beg your pardon; I thought that one of your a.s.sistants had done it."

I heard this even while serving my customer and I don't think I had ever seen La.r.s.en act so pleased. The old chap almost purred with delight. The salesman didn't say any more to La.r.s.en, however, but turned around and inspected the electrical goods.

When I was disengaged he walked over to me.

"Good morning, Mr. Black; I have a message for you; but, before I deliver it, I wonder if you have such a thing as a bit of sc.r.a.p zinc or tin around the place?"

"Yes," I said, and told Jimmie to bring a piece.

The jolly-looking man then took a pocket-knife from his pocket, opened it and cut two or three slivers off the zinc. Pa.s.sing the knife over to me, he said: "Did you ever see a pocket-knife before that could do that without denting?"

"No. But I never heard before of any one cutting zinc with a pocket-knife."