Tulsa Lumber Merchant's Spring "Clearance Sale" Proves Success

If the clothing dealer and the rnillinery sl-rop and department stores generally can conduct their spring clearance sales with undoubted success. why couldn't the retail lumber merchants do the same?'So -argued Mr. H. E. Hanna and his associates in the Hanna Lumber Company, Tulsa, Oklahoma. And their answer was no reason on earth why it couldn't be done. So they went ahead to prove it. And did.

As a matter of fact, the Hanna Lumber Com'panv is a "department store" for house owners and home builders. They sell not only completed homes, but also every building necessity and side line appurtenant to the home. In a word they are home building specialists. Included in the list are paints, wall paper, electric fixtures, garden tools, built-in features, and novelties in the great variety made of wood. They maintain a dozen or more highly specialized departments to provide the needs of their trade a{ter the home is built.

It was largely to acquaint the public with these departments that the idea of a spring clearance sale was conceived. All Tulsa and the surrounding countrv already knew that Hanna Lumber Company as builders of real good substantial homes. But there were those lvho were not aware of the existence of these highly specialized departments. The plan was to offer the various home needs at prices sufficiently attractive to warrant the public to visit their plant to see them and buy them.

The sale was planned, and after some discussion, it was decided to make the event general, and offer price concessions in every department, except the lumber and builders' hardware departments. They started out with a campaign of teaser advertising in their local newspapers, supplemented by a big banner across the front of their truilding, the theme being "What Is the Strangest Thing You Ever Saw ?"

The sale was held the week of March 8 to 13. On Friday preceding the opening date, the secret was revealed in the newspapers and in tl-re spring number of the "Built-InMagazine," a monthly publication mailed to their trade. Sunday, the day before the sale, two six-column newspaper ads were used to announce the details of the event. This space enumerated scores of articles including paints, wall paper, ironing-boards, electrical fixtures, carpenters' tools, garden tools and fencing, trellis and garden seats, shrubs and unfinished novelties. The latter included end and console tables, radio tables, book shelves, fern stands, cabinets, smoking stands and a hundred other items.

Supplementing this advertising, an exhibit was arranged in front of their building, of trellises, fence, chicken houses, garden seats and other products of their mill. Their windows ivere attractively decoiated with sale n-rerchandise. Everything in the building was tagged and placarded in department store style, and special tables, built for the occasion, and laden with carpenter tools and other small wares, were placed on the first floor.

-It goes almost without saying that the results obtained {rom this sale, the first event of its kind for the firm, were highly gratifying. The very real values ofiered, couplecl with a sale each morning of thousands of pieces of shrubbery at a figure slightly above cost, served to popularize the sale. People visited the plant by the hundreds every day and the company was enabled to enlarge their mailing list considerably by obtaining in a tactful manner the names of many of those in attendance.

Despite the weather, which was anything but springlike, the sale was a huge success, one productive of lasting results, for customers in ever increasing numbers have followed in its wake. Views showing the very attractive home of the Hanna Lumber Company, and some of their special departments, are reproduced on another page. The art studio was recently opened, and is a unique service feature. Here they have daily classes and give free instruction in painting, decorating, enameling, etc., uncler the direction of Miss Hill.

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