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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1913)
THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION EEAT STORE LUE TON How Trade is Made Held by the Big Shops that draw the Crowd BY ARTHUR IRWIN Illustrations - C. H .Mitchell ES 5 LODES fill'' J .A, JIMMY'S SHOES are clear out, and sister h gingham dress simply ain't lit (o go to school in, and if I don't get something new myself in place of these rags, I'll simply fall to pieces, that's all." t ' "All right, ma. I kin spare the brown mare. You just git Jimmy to hitch up and drive you to town, and you buy what yon want from Andy Lewis. ' lie kin charge it, till the hay's cut." . That's the way America used to go to tho store when soino of us were children. In those days, tho store's only aim was to supply its patron's needs. Andy Lewis bought and sold gingham, becauso ho knew ma and sister would have to have it; and, for the samo reason, ho stocked up on good, tough calfskin shoes for Jimmy and cowhide boots for pa. Hut nowadays it's different. America goes to any ono storo as it goes to a circus or an exposition because it is enticed there. And the game of enticing nmkes (he old circus look like a three-quarter eclipse of the moon. Tho circus, you re member, used to come round once or twice a year nnd put us and tho kiddies in a wild state of excitement for any where from throo to six weeks beforo thu show itself blow in. Hut tho modern store, the department store, begins at us almost before daylight every morning and never lets up till the next morning. It puts its offer ings before us in tho daily paper which wo read at break fast; it displays its wares be foro us as wo walk down the street; it talks to us in the "extras" of tho afternoons; and it lights its windows for our seduction as wo leavo the theater of an evening. Regardless of season, weather, or circumstances, tho department storo is always before us. If the sun looks down with too favoring rays, the store manages to confront us with the idea that we can sco a cooler placo behind its windows. If winter grips us in its annual shudders, tho storo gently reminds us that furs and radiators and soft, thick blankets and alluring fireplaces can be found just beyond the revolving doors of Jones & Co. If there has boon a wreck or n tiro that would have kept the circus away C ;1 11 IrwL There are women who aire demonstrations for a week or have ruined any other institution, the store is on time next morning with a display of "damaged goods" at unheard-of prices. There even is on record a storo which, having been robbed of nil its fancy silks on Saturday night, made a special window display of plain silks on Monday morning, with a sign attached saying that it at least had these goods leit and would sell them at a sac rifice I There is on the modern store keeper's mind not so much the supplying of our needs as the creating of needs that we never even dreamed of before. From cellar to garret of his huge estab lishment, he is at us hammer and tongs, and perennially along this one line. He holds exhibits, otters bargains, adver tises "white sales," "clearance sales," and any number of other kinds of sales to bring us under his roof where ho can play upon our fancy and sell things to us that wo previously knew not of. If we are reluctant, ho cuts a gash in his prices that fetches the flush of cu riosity to our checks. If wo do not yield to prices and need educa tion along other lines, ho builds a suite of rooms, equipped like those of a mansion nnd invites us in, with out charge, to sco how the rich live and how wo ought to live. If we aro plain, plodding women who do our own house work, he piles bis labor-saving devices in the windows until, contemplating them, we turn pale with envy and longing. If we have habits and refuse to be budged, he springs a sanitary object-lesson on us and terrorizes us with tho dread of disease if we do not speedily mend our ways. Figuratively speaking, the department storekeeper stands in front of our Desires and Tastes liko a policeman in front of the pushcart pedlar or the street crowd, and exclaims: "Move along, please! Keep moving!" Ai we leave tho theater of an evening for ingenuity, for cunniiif: ,. vHaaMKaSajatit.- Salei that play upon our fancy A ND behind tho storekeeper is a bunch of machinery calculated to keep almost any thing moving. There is a storo building, for instance, that costs anywhere from one hun dred thousand to a million dollars and that has to earn the interest on its investment. There aro anywhere from five to fifteen acres of floor space, chock full of stuff that has to bo sold. There are a thousand to live thousand clerks that have to bo paid. There aro ten to a hundred horses that have to be fed or auto trucks that have to be garaged. There are factories that do nothing but make goods for the individual store, and tho factories and their hands have to be sustained. More than that, there are buyers scouring the country and crossing the ocean and invading the wildernesses to find things that will sell. There arc wholesalers working band in hand with jobbers, nnd jobbers massing their forces to prevail upon the retailer. There are designers utilizing their ingenuity and nrtists exerting their genius. There even aro men who plan floor spaces and make a (specialty of arranging shelves. There are women who give demonstrations and models who pose. Manifestly, so vast a concern, instituted for private profit, has no alternative but to stand like the policeman in front of our Desires and Tastes and to keep them moving. It has been estimated, for example, by the proprietor of one big department storo that to sustain a store employing 2,000 clerks, a daily patronage of 20,000 to 25,000 persons is indispensable; and that means in the course of a week at least 100,000 to 150,000 persons. One hun dred to one hundred and fifty thousand persons of different f r a m o s of mind, of different im pulses, of different tastes, and all to be led to one storo and made to buy I Is it any won der that tho game of enticing makes the old time circus look like a three - quarter lunar eclipse? A circus comes but once or twice a vear, draws 10,000 to 12,000 visitors for two or three evenings suc cessively and then de parts ; but a great mod ern store has to have twice that many every day in the year, and it never departs. Not only that, but differing further from 'the circus, it has to have a new en ticement for every day in tho calendar. The same show can not be offered twice in succes sion. A problem, isn't it, , for resourcefulness, for power? A problem that requires ability to get goods which will sell, ability to sell them at a figure that the public purse can stand, and ability to con vince the public that the purse ought to stand it. A problem that would stagger the shades of the storekeepers of old liS nnd nddle tho wits of mosi oi mo living ones, w ere t b e y plunged into the midst of it unprepared by the course of evolu tion. And what is the so lution? Easy and sim ple, ns usual. Just a knowledge of human n a t u r e, particularly American nature, and an adequate mercan tile system to back it up. Just a recollec tion that most of us. being descendants of good old New England stock, or having been infiue need by New England, lovo nothing in the world so much as a bargain, nnd that that storo is our store which gives us tho most perpetual, undying, and matchless array of bargains. We may not all be of tho same bargain mold. Some of us may be more suspicious than others of the things offered below price; but in one manner or other we all eventually rise to the idea of getting something for less than it appears to be worth. And day after day, tho department store harps upon this one string. Often, tho things it presents appear alnio-i unquestionably to bo somo manner of fraud; but it is seldom that they are. A two-dollar to three dollar white shoe offered 'for ninety-eight looks impossible. Years ago, especially in the da of the old-time store, most of us would have slu. ;. (.Continued on Page S) Tylcr'"" The clerk see it before he does