The Romance of a Great Store Part 11

Because window display is recognized as advertising, the ceaseless work of the master window dressers upon the outer rim of the Macy store comes under the direct supervision of the advertising department which in turn reports direct to no less an authority than the triple partnership itself. Publicity is the great right-arm of the super-store of the America of today. Publicity not in one channel, but in a thousand.

Macy's not only helps to dominate the advertising pages of the newspapers of New York and a good many miles round about it, its red star not only gleams in Herald Square, but in these very recent days upon the high-set electric h.o.a.rdings of Times Square that blaze forth far into the night; it finds its way into the public thought here and there and everywhere. And yet, with due appreciation of every other medium of publicity, the street window of the store still remains one of the most important phases of its appeal to possible patrons.

Its displays are scheduled long in advance; are devised as carefully as the decoration of a home might be, or, better still, as Urban or Pogany would plan the stage-settings of a scene in the Metropolitan or at any one of the various "Follies" that one finds just north of the Opera House. A large staff of men is kept constantly at work dressing the windows, and this staff includes the carpenters, paper-hangers, painters and electricians who are needed to help prepare the special exhibits.

Under the floor of the window next the princ.i.p.al entrance on Thirty-fourth Street there is a tank, which is used when a pool of water is required to carry out some scenic effect. It is capable of floating a canoe to suggest the joys of camping and the need of going to Macy's for one's vacation requisites--as well as for use in other capacities. Known in the store as the "parlor window" it has been made to represent pretty nearly everything from milady's bedroom to a glorified carpenter shop.

Window displays are regarded by Macy's as an important auxiliary to newspaper announcements. Very recently, during the few weeks before Christmas, a sale of overcoats was advertised. All the windows were then dressed with Christmas merchandise, but from one of them this was all removed and the sale overcoats subst.i.tuted. For one day only. For upon the very next one the Christmas window was returned to its holly and mistletoe flavor.

Here is a pretty direct indication of the store's att.i.tude towards its immensely valuable windows--if you do not consider them valuable inquire the price of the advertising signs in the Herald Square neighborhood. I asked its advertising manager if, in his opinion, the window s.p.a.ce would not bring better returns if it were devoted to direct selling, instead of mere indirect selling through display. I had in the back of my mind some of the great Paris emporiums who think so little of window- and so much of selling-s.p.a.ce that on bright warm days they spread some of their notions and novelty-counters right out upon the broad sidewalks of the Boulevards.

"No," said he, "decidedly no. To be able to show one's goods to the mult.i.tudes that pa.s.s these windows nearly every hour of the day is an a.s.set that cannot be overestimated."

This is neither the time nor the place to go into the ethics or the fine principles of the most recently developed of American professions--advertising; the salesmanship of goods and of ideas not so much by the merchandise itself as by the representation of it. Neither is it the place to review the vast position that the modern department store has taken in the development of modern advertising of every sort: Newspapers, magazines, bill-boards, electric signs, other forms of display as well. There are folk who say that if it were not for the department-store advertising we should not have had the fully developed metropolitan newspaper of today; while, on the other hand, some of the larger merchants are not reluctant in saying that our modern metropolitan newspapers are the chief causes that have made the department-store as we know it in New York and other large cities of the United States possible. Be these things as they may, the fact does remain, however, solid and indisputable, that the co-operation between these two groups of interests has been more than profitable to their patrons, to say nothing of themselves. And not the least of the contributing causes to such profits is the fundamental honesty of the advertis.e.m.e.nts.

Not so very many years ago the measure of integrity in advertising was, to speak charitably, a variable one. When they talked about them in print merchants were very likely to become overenthusiastic about their goods. Modesty was flung to the four winds. Printers' ink seemed to be taken as an automatic absolution for exaggeration--and oftimes absolute mis-statement--and, strangely enough, the public appeared to fall in with the idea. More often than not the merchant "got away with it"--or, if not, made good with bad grace, in which case the customer was satisfied. He had to be.

But not so with Macy's. Early in its history an advertising policy was formulated that has endured to the present and will continue to endure.

It is the house's stoutly expressed belief that there is no possible excuse whatsoever for misrepresentation and, following this out, it is its invariable rule to stand back of its advertising, to the last ditch.

To this end it has inculcated such a spirit of conservatism into its advertising department that the superlative is eliminated and forbidden in describing Macy goods. "We may think that these articles are the best, or the most beautiful, or the greatest bargain, but we can't absolutely be sure of it." That is its att.i.tude. The only possible criticism is the same that one applies to the man who stands so straight that he leans backward.

Is the system flawless? Of course not--no system is. Not many weeks ago an incident occurred that shows how Macy's may slip up--and then make good; it put out a small newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nt featuring coats for small boys at $8.74. These were advertised as "wool chinchilla" and so potent was the appeal of the notice that by ten o'clock the entire stock of nine hundred coats was gone. Then one of the store executives discovered that the coats were not _all wool_ and things began to hum.

"Never said that they were all wool," the responsible sub-executive cornered. "People ought to know that they can't buy an all-wool coat for that money."

That made no difference with the big boss. Patiently and firmly he explained that in a Macy advertis.e.m.e.nt "wool" means "all-wool" except where it is clearly specified that it contains cotton. Another advertis.e.m.e.nt was inserted in the newspapers the following day. It explained and apologized for the mis-statement and said, "We would deem it a favor if our customers would bring in these coats and accept a return of their money." Out of the nine hundred coats sold one was brought back for credit, while another was brought in by a customer who wanted to keep the coat but thought that she might get a rebate. She didn't. Macy's may lean over backward but it doesn't drag on the ground--an instance of which is contained in the following:

Christmas candy for Sunday Schools was advertised in a number of New York newspapers at the very low price of $7.44 for one hundred pounds.

In one newspaper three pieces of type fell out of the form with the result that the advertis.e.m.e.nt went to press quoting a hundred-weight of candy at forty-four cents! It was patent that it was a typographical error, for the decimal point, as well as the dollar mark and the figure 7 was gone and there was a blank s.p.a.ce where the types were missing.

Three would-be customers tried, however, to hold the store accountable for the very obvious error. And Macy's balked!

The lowest-in-the-city-prices policy keeps the advertising department on its toes continually. Other stores' prices must be antic.i.p.ated wherever it is humanly possible, which means constant revisions of the copy.

Occasionally a price duel develops that becomes spectacular in the extreme. In a recent memorable one "hard water soap" figured as the _casus belli_. Macy patrons know their right now to expect lowest prices, so when another store began to cut Macy's advertised prices on this commodity, Macy's had to return in suite. Whereupon the other store cut under Macy's again; and Macy's in turn went its compet.i.tor one better. It then became a merry game of parry and thrust until, one fine day, Macy's was selling twelve dozen cakes of hard water soap for the inconsiderable sum of one copper cent. One came near G.o.dliness for a small amount that day. The public profited hugely, but Macy's lived up to its policy.

As a rule advertis.e.m.e.nts originate with the department managers. Keeping in mind that they are the buyers, the merchants responsible for the moving of their stock, it can be seen that they know best the goods that ought to be featured. The value of the s.p.a.ce used is charged against their departments, so that their requisitions are governed accordingly.

The advertising manager is a large factor, however, in the allotment of s.p.a.ce--not only the clearing-house, but practically the court of last resort--concerning the rival claims by the department manager for s.p.a.ce upon a given day. After all, there is a limit to the size of a newspaper page.

When a certain line of goods is about to be advertised, the comparison department is notified and the articles are "shopped." That is, one or more of the expert shopping staff is given the task of ascertaining what other stores are charging for the same things so that it may be made sure that the Macy price will be lower. The information then is pa.s.sed on to the copy writing staff and samples of the goods are studied for selling points. While the description is being written, one of the art staff makes a drawing, either in the nature of a design or ill.u.s.tration, and when these are completed the advertis.e.m.e.nt is set in type. This, bear in mind, is only for one item. Macy advertis.e.m.e.nts, more often than not, cover an entire newspaper page and are made up of many separate items, each of which goes through practically the same process of creation. Their final collection and arrangement on the page are made by an advertising expert of skill and taste and from this fact, combined with the distinctive type faces that are commonly used, one might be reasonably sure of identifying a Macy advertis.e.m.e.nt even if the store name were to be entirely omitted.

In addition to window display, newspaper and magazine announcements, it is the concern of the advertising department to provide the store with its sign cards and special-price tickets. These are all a part of the big problem of letting the public know about Macy goods. Yet above and beyond all of these things, the store's supreme advertis.e.m.e.nt, if you please, is the establishment itself, the service that it strives so sincerely to give. To use the current phrase of expert publicity men, the store, its salespeople and its prices must _sell_ Macy's to the outside world. Outside advertising is but supplementary to this; but a single horse in a team of four.

With this fact firmly fixed in your mind, consider next the unbending problem of making the salesforce into a genuine salesforce; one that constantly and continually backs up the force of the printed advertis.e.m.e.nt by the skill of its real salesmanship. When we come in another chapter to consider the Macy family as a whole we shall see in some detail its remarkable educational and training opportunities. These have been brought to bear directly upon the creation, not only of thoroughness and accuracy on the part of the clerk, but for courtesy and persuasiveness and enthusiasm as well--the things that make the structure of morale; that quality that we first began to know and to understand as such in the days of the Great War.

"If you are playing a game, such as tennis, or bridge, or baseball or what-not," said one of the department managers to his sales staff but a few mornings ago, "you are out to beat your best friend; if you can, do it fairly and squarely, otherwise never. The enjoyment you derive from a game depends on the spirit with which you play it. When you begin to regard business in a similar light, playing it as a game in a sportsmanlike manner, then you will begin to get fun out of it--you will begin to make progress."

After the preliminary training which every salesclerk receives, he or she is a.s.signed to a department. Thenceforward a good deal depends on personal initiative; for in dealing with customers no small part of the store's reputation for efficiency and courtesy depends upon the individual clerk. A salesperson may become not only a distinct a.s.set to the house, but may develop a personal clientele through especially intelligent and courteous attention to the customers' wishes. And this, owing to the system of allowing a bonus on sales above a certain fixed quota, and a commission on sales up to that quota, may make it financially very much worth while to him or her.

Salesmanship in a store as large as Macy's must of necessity include the knowledge of considerable detail in the making out of sales slips, procedure with regard to C. O. D. deliveries, depositors' accounts, exchanges and the like. This knowledge is a fundamental part of each salesperson's equipment. His or her efficiency must come, however, from a far wider development of the possibilities of the salesmanship, from the "playing of the game," as the department manager put it but a moment ago--the understanding use of courtesy, merchandise knowledge, helpfulness. Such efficiency pays. The Macy folk who come to use it regularly soon find themselves advancing to responsible and highly-paid positions.

It is interesting to follow the career of a sales slip from the time it is made out--when the sale is made--until the time that it ceases to function. Here is one of the most important items in the mechanism of a large retail store. It is an essential unit of a carefully developed system to keep track of sales, from the minute that they are made until they are finally delivered and audited.

The sales slip--the Macy clerk has three different ones of them in all--is made in three distinct parts--original, duplicate and triplicate. Each of these is divided into several parts; each of which in turn is destined for separate hands. The packer of the merchandise gets one part, which eventually goes to the customer, a second to the cashier, the third the clerk retains. Eventually these last two come together once again in the auditing department and are checked, the one against the other; after which one goes into the archives of the bureau of investigation, in case that there is any further question about the details of the transaction. This one example of the infinite detail in the conduct of a great store is a slight indication of the responsibility upon the shoulders of not only its managers but the rank and file of its salesforce as well. A single error in the making out of a sales slip may easily result in expensive and hara.s.sing complications all the way along the line.

A system of transfer books enables the store's customer to make purchases in its various departments with the least possible waiting.

The goods and prices are entered in a small book which is given the customer at the time of the first purchase of the day. While the customer is making his or her other purchases they are being sent to the wrapping room where they are held in a growing group until the customer presents the book to the cashier at the transfer desk on the main floor, pays the total and, a few minutes later, receives a neat package in which all of the items are wrapped together; or else it is sent to any designated address.

Enough, for the moment, of detail. Some of it is necessary to a proper understanding of the workings of this great machine of modern business, but too much of it may easily bore you. Instead, quickly turn your attention to a Macy feature dear to the heart of the average shopper--male or deadlier. Here is the familiar, the time-honored "special sale." In holding these Macy does not lay claim to originality, except perhaps in the amount of merchandising involved and the spectacularly low prices. Sales are in a large measure opportunities for the store as well as for the customer. It takes a goodly amount of merchandise from a manufacturer who for some reason offers a large concession in price and pa.s.ses on its advantage to its customers. This is not generosity. It is good business. It is sound business. It is progressive business.

Take a sale of laundry soap that went on within the great store about a year ago. The soap was made in this country and contracted for by the city of Paris, upon a dollar basis. Exchange slumped, and with francs worth only a fraction of their former value, Paris couldn't afford to take it. Macy's offer for it was accepted and so marked was the reduction at which it was offered to the public that inside of two weeks the big store had sold twenty-two carloads of it. Figuring from the fact that a carload comprised six hundred cases, the turnover amounted to 6,862 cases; or, counting a hundred bars to a case, 686,200 pieces of soap!

The most successful sale of winter underwear that Macy's ever held took place during a very warm week in July, a twelvemonth before the laundry soap episode. A large manufacturer wanted to unload his stock and Macy's bought it for cash. Add to these facts the consideration that the goods were away out of season and you can readily see how it was possible to buy the goods at a very low price. Relying upon the public's ability to judge values, in and out of season, the store launched the sale--and launched it successfully. It was like a scene out of _Alice in Wonderland_ to see the crowds of men and women with perspiration rolling down their foreheads buying woolen "undies" against the needs of winter.

Americans do like to be forehanded.

Macy's ability to buy and sell huge quant.i.ties of merchandise is demonstrated through these sales. Very recently over seven thousand of a particular leather traveling bag were sold in less than four weeks, at an aggregate price of nearly $75,000. In one day seven hundred vacuum cleaners were sold for $29.75 each. This list might be continued indefinitely; for not only has Macy's proved that it pays to advertise but that it pays to follow the Macy advertis.e.m.e.nts.

Down in the bas.e.m.e.nt of this great mart of Herald Square there is a corner not often shown to the outer world, from which there constantly emerge noises which blend and combine to give the effect of a staccato rumble. Thud, thud, t-h-u-u-d, thud, thudity, thud, thud. Then a sound of air, as in a Gargantuan sigh. Thudity, thud, and so on, _ad infinitum_. These sounds seemingly are quite unending. If your curiosity draws you toward the door from which these sounds emerge and you finally are permitted to open it and go within, you will find a company of young women sitting along both sides of three sets of moving belts, quickly picking bra.s.s cylinders from the belts as they pa.s.s them. Except for the fact that there is another tube room on the fourth floor (for the upper floor selling departments) this bas.e.m.e.nt place might truly be called the heart of the store, for it is these bra.s.s cylinders that contain the life-blood of the business, the cash which the customers pay for their purchases. Call the tube room the pulse of the store and the a.n.a.logy is better--certainly their throbbing is a close index of its condition.

Alert cashiers pick up the carriers from the upper belt as they pa.s.s, deftly make the required change, and drop them to the lower belt, on which they are conveyed to other young women who despatch them to the departments whence they came. This continues for approximately eight hours each working day. The cash carriers do considerable traveling in the course of a year. One of them might easily go from the new Bagdad to the old. Yes, it might. If you still scoff let us look at the system together and do a little figuring upon our own account.

Throughout the store there are two hundred and fifty cash stations--the outer terminals of the line at one of whose common hearts we now stand.

Each of these stations is connected with one or the other of the common hearts by two separate lines of tubing, one for sending and the other for receiving the carriers. There is a total of 125,000 feet of this tubing, or nearly twenty-four miles. Five thousand cash carriers are in use and the average number of round-trips made per day by all of them is 150,000. Each round-trip averages two hundred and fifty feet. The average distance traveled each day by this host of travelers then comes to the astonishing total of 37,500,000 feet--7,155 miles. Now to your atlases and find how far the new Bagdad is from the old. And if that distance does not give you pause, consider that the peak-load of the system was carried on a day when its mileage ran to 12,120--an equivalent of one-half the distance around the world--in a little over eight hours.

Truly it would seem that money goes far at Macy's.

V. Distributing the Goods

When milady of Manhattan finishes her purchases in Macy's, snaps her purse together once again and goes out of the store, the transaction is ended, at least as far as she herself is concerned. But not so for Macy's. Particularly not so when she has given orders that the goods be "sent," either to her own home or to the home of some friend. In such cases the largest part of the store's responsibility still is ahead of it. It must see to it that the package--or packages--shall be carried to the proper destination, quickly, promptly, correctly. Which means that the great business machine of Herald Square has another great function to perform.

There is, in the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt of the Herald Square store, where the greatest portion of its own great transportation system is situated, an ancient two-wheeled cart, somewhat faded and battered, yet still a red delivery wagon and showing clearly the name of the house it served, R.

H. Macy & Company. It is a treasured relic of other days, which now and then again, at great intervals, is shown to the populace in the all-too-rare parades of the huge wagon equipment of the store today.

The gentleman who gives the lecture which accompanies any public showing of this ancient equipage is Mr. James Woods, who, as we have already seen, has been with the store for nearly half a century and who has risen in its service to the important post of a.s.sistant superintendent of the delivery department. Mr. Woods regards the cart with tender affection, since it was he who once was the human horse who strode between its shafts. That was back in 1873, long years before the store had moved north from the once tree-shaded Fourteenth Street. Mr.

Macy, himself, was still very much in charge of the enterprise and was pa.s.sing proud of his delivery "fleet"--consisting of three horse-drawn wagons, and young Jimmie Woods with the cart. A good many prosperous New Yorkers then had their residences within a dozen blocks or less of the old store, and young Jimmie's legs--and the cart--could and did serve them, easily and expeditiously.

That was almost the beginning of the Macy delivery department. In fact it had been but five years before that Mr. Macy had acquired the first horse-drawn rig for this purpose. From that beginning the growth was steady although slow. Ten years after Mr. Woods first came to it--in 1883--there were but fifteen wagons. In 1902, when the great trek was made north to Herald Square, there were a hundred. Today there are more than two hundred and fifty, of which by far the larger number are motor driven. These last range all the way from the big five-ton motor trucks which, as we shall presently see, are used primarily for carrying merchandise between the store and its outlying distributing stations, down to the small one-ton truck, which is used at its greatest advantage in city street distribution. And an astonishing number of horse-drawn vehicles remain. That is, astonishing to the uninitiated layman, who perhaps has been led to believe that the motor truck in this, its heyday of perfection, could hardly be surpa.s.sed for any form of carrying. As a matter of fact, however, the department-stores as well as the express companies, skilled in the multiple distribution of small packages, have, after a careful and intensive study of the motor trucks--which has resulted in their ordering many, many hundreds of them for certain of their necessities--discovered that for certain forms of delivery the horse and wagon still remains unsurpa.s.sed. The time that a delivery wagon remains standing becomes an economic factor in its use. If it moved all the time it undoubtedly would be as cheap and certainly more efficient to use a small automobile truck. But when there are fairly lengthy stops and close together, where perhaps the vehicle is idle for four minutes for every one that it is actually in operation, the factor of having an expensive machine idle as against an inexpensive one comes into play.

Business organizations reckon these things not alone from sentiment, but from hard-headed facts. Yet they are not entirely free from sentiment, even in such seemingly purely commercial matters as delivery. The very condition and upkeep of the vehicles of a high-grade department-store show this. "Spic-and-span" is hardly the phrase by which to describe them. Fresh paint and gold striping--the smooth sides so cleaned and polished, that one might see his face reflected mirror-like upon them, the horses to the last state of perfection--this is the Macy standard of delivery. A Macy truck and wagon is designed to be one of the store's best advertis.e.m.e.nts.

A skillful trucking contractor from the lower west side of New York went to a department-store owner a dozen years or more ago and said:

"Mr. A----, after a little study of your delivery service, I am convinced that if you would turn it over to me, I could save you more than fifty per cent. in its operation."