Dawson Black: Retail Merchant Part 36

"How do they pick out the towns to locate in?"

"When they look for a town in which to locate a store, they want to know a lot of facts about it. They want to know, for example, whether the town covers a large area or not. They find out if the houses are scattered, or if the dwellings are concentrated in a small area. They like a town that is a trading center for neighboring towns, because they can draw from all these neighboring towns as well as from their own local trade. If it's a manufacturing town, they want to know whether the factories make such goods as will tend to make the labor problem steady.

For instance, they wouldn't want to locate in a town which was always having labor troubles, or where there were periods where the factories have to close down because they manufacture seasonal goods. In other words, they want a town which has a regular, steady trade all the year.

"A good residential town, of course, is splendid for them. When they go to a manufacturing town they pick out, wherever possible, a town which has a diversified line of manufactories, instead of one which is devoted to one line of industry. You see, that helps to avoid slack times, because if one line is slack the other is inclined to be busy. See my point?

"Then they find out how many stores in their line are in the town, and if they look alive and up to date."

"Did you think we were a dead lot?" I asked.

"Sorry you asked me that," said Roger with a grin. "They did. Yes, they think that old Barlow has the only real store in the town."

"And me and Stigler?" I said interestedly, even if ungrammatically.

"Well, they think Stigler is a joke, and that you are--" he hesitated for a word--"inexperienced!"

"So they think that Barlow,--old-fas.h.i.+oned, plug-along Barlow--is the only real compet.i.tor in the town?"

"Yes. You see, Barlow does twice as much trade as you and Stigler put together, and then some."

I had never realized before that Barlow was so much a bigger man than I was, but the more I thought of it the more I believed that the chain-store people had sized up the situation correctly.

"Then," continued Roger, "they find out where the people live; if they own their own houses, or if they rent them. Obviously, a town where people own their own homes is going to offer a more regular and permanent trade than one where every one lives in rented houses. Then they want to find out how and when the great number of employees in the manufacturing plants are paid. They want to know this so that they can offer special sale goods and such-like on the day that the people get the money."

That was a new one on me. I had never thought of that before.

"Everybody pays on Sat.u.r.days, don't they?" I asked.

"Everybody used to, but it is by no means uncommon, now, for factories to pay the help on Thursday and Friday.

"When they've studied this question, they next study the business streets to learn which are the most important.

"The most important to them does not necessarily mean the main street of the town, but the one which offers the greatest number of pa.s.sersby, who are likely to be customers. For instance, they want to know where the people congregate in the streets in the evening. Do they go past the drug store and past the most popular movie theater? Do the men go through the town on the way home, or can they get home without going through the shopping section?

"Now, some concerns, such as the big chain cigar store people, plan to get the corner which has the greatest number of people pa.s.sing it. They have tellers stand outside various corners and count the number of people going each way during various hours of the day. But our people do differently," said Roger, with a pride that made me realize that the instruction they had given him had certainly developed in him absolute confidence in his people. "We try to get stores with a reasonable rent just off the main thoroughfares, but so located that we catch as many pa.s.sersby as possible.

"Now, we are opening in Macey Street, although High and Main are unquestionably our two main thoroughfares here."

Macey Street is a narrow street running from the post-office, which is on Main Street, facing Macey, and connecting with High. On High Street is the theater and two of the moving-picture houses. The railroad station, also, is on High, a little way from Macey.

"Now, on Main Street," said Roger, "are all our business and professional men. Their best way to get home is down Macey into High, either to the depot or to the trolley junction in front of the depot.

Thus you see we catch the bulk of the people coming from Main to High and from High to Main. The rent is even less than you pay," he said with a smile, "and yet we have a location which is several times better than yours."

I felt as if I wanted to kick myself when he said that. If I had only known that. I had bought the store, but I had never even thought that I might have gotten a better location than I had.

"Then the next thing we have to consider," said Roger, "is whether or not we are on the right side of the street. Now, you may or may not know it, but the right side of the street is the one which has the greatest amount of shade in the summer. You see, in the heat of the summer, people prefer to walk in the shade, and consequently they take the shady side of the street. In the winter, if there is any snow, it makes the sunny side of the street sloppy, so that people still walk on the shady side."

"H'm. Stigler's got one over me, then, because he's on the shady side of the road."

"Yes, we reckoned that Stigler had a bit better location than you had.

But he evidently does not know it, else he wouldn't have wasted that money opening the five-and-ten-cent store next door to you."

"He's doing a big business," I said ruefully.

"Wait till after Christmas. The Christmas season is a big time for five-and-ten-cent stores such as his. But wait until February, and he'll 'find it's a rocky road to Dublin.'"

I certainly felt good to hear that. Roger grinned.

"Tell you, old man," he said, stretching over and putting his hand on my knee, "I don't like Stigler, and I'd like to go for his scalp, only my company insists that I'm here to sell goods to the people, and not to compete with any one else. But, if the time ever comes that you can get a bit better location than you have, do so. You see, old man, the bulk of your people have to go to the store. You don't get a great amount of people pa.s.sing it naturally.

"Another reason we chose this location is that we are just between you and Barlow."

"How is that any help?"

"Well, it helps in this way. Some one pa.s.sing your store suddenly remembers that she wants something--a saucepan, let us say. She has already walked by your store and doesn't bother to turn back. A little later on she comes to my store. I get the benefit of the suggestions which occur to people as they pa.s.s your store."

I could hardly believe that. It sounded too much like--oh, quackery; and I told Roger so.

"All right, old man," he said with a smile. "But have you ever noticed when you go to a big city that you will find a man at one corner selling apples and then there is a man on the next corner doing the same thing.

You will notice how people pa.s.s the first one, then take a few seconds to think it over, or the suggestion is just a little one, and it is strengthened when they come to the second stand. The same thing applies to a group of stores. As an example of this: In Jacksonville, Fla., there are not less than six hardware stores located in one block. That town of sixty thousand people has several good business streets, but this group of stores has become known as 'The Hardware Center' and people gravitate there for anything they want in the hardware line.

Those stores benefit by being together. The same thing applies in a smaller way to a street of stores. One store by itself doesn't impel the buying instinct, but a street of stores puts the thought of buying into the minds of people pa.s.sing them."

Well, that certainly was mighty interesting. Roger silently smoked for some minutes. I thought he had finished his story, but there was more.

"Then, when we had got the store," he said, "we found there were two little steps leading to it. We had these removed, and put in a slope from the street to the floor. It is easier for people to walk up a slope than up two steps. Then, if you notice, we have had the windows altered.

There were two panes in each window. We have had them taken out and one big gla.s.s put in each one. Then we have had a new lighting system put in. And then you notice that the outside of the store has been painted an olive green. That is the distinctive color of our stores, and also is a color which harmonizes with our goods.

"Now, we have given a lot of care to lighting and to the outside appearance of the store. We have some good display counters inside the store, but we have only cheap deal fixtures. We haven't spent much money on fixtures, because they have not quick-a.s.set value."

"What in the name of thunder is that?"

"Well, a quick-a.s.set value is the value that an article will fetch at a forced sale, and it is the policy of the company to invest in nothing that will deteriorate as rapidly as expensive fixtures do."

"It certainly is wonderful," I said. "They seem to have thought of everything, haven't they?"

"Yes, indeed; even to the point that we have a lease on the store with a clause in it that, if we give it up, it is not to be rented for another hardware business for at least twelve months after the expiration of our lease."

"Did they stand for that?"

"You bet they did."

"What's the idea?"

"Well, we believe we have the best location, but we are not sure. Now, if we find in two or three years' time that we haven't got the location, we will get a better one. In that case, we are not going to make it possible for some one to take that same location and scoop up our business, because another hardware store, coming in there, would reap the benefit of all the publicity we gave to the store. Do you see the point?"

I saw the point all right. That conversation with Roger Burns was a revelation to me. If only I had given the same thought and care to getting a store how much better off I'd have been!

Another thing I realized from Roger's talk. They plugged ahead steadily.