There's AlwaysRoom for a Merchant Where Mr. Pip Operates

By lack Dionne

Not long ago I talked retail lumber business to a veter"r, ,"t"it"" who is just as steeped in the beliefs of old fashioned methods of running lumber yards as he was twenty five years ago. Nothing I could say or suggest impressed him in the very least. He has been running yards for a generation, I haven't, so my ideas are all theories, and his are based on sound experience.

He clings to the profound conviction that the sum and substance of a retail lumber business is to keep down investment, keep down expenses by spending nothing you donft absolutely have to, don't over-sell like some folks do, quote your trade fair prices, and collect the money. The fact that the first merchant that operated in America five hundred years ago used that exact same system, made no difference to hirn- He KNEW. He'd PROVEN his theories"

That same day I was talking to a man who has established a wide reputation as a lumber merchandiser, who believes in creating business, and who has proven to his own satisfaction that it PAYS to merchandise. Pays BIG.

I told him about the set-to I had had with the other lumber dealer mentio4ed above, and I suggested seriously to him that he sit down quietly with this first man, and SHOW HIM FROM HIS BOOKS AND FIGURES THE RESULTS HE HAS BEEN GETTING ON HIS MODERN EFFORTS AT CREATING BUSINESS IN THE RETAIL GAME.

"Ife won't listen to me" I said, "because mine are theories, but YOU can show him, as you have shown me, what can be done and what you are doing.', The answer was startling. I had overlooked onB point.

"I can't do itr" he said, "he is a competitor of mine at several points, I make more money at those points than I do anywhere else, AND I CAN'T AFFORD FoR My OWN SAKE TO WAKE THAT SLEEPY BIRD UP.''

I have run into that same situation countless times in the past fifteen years. The most wonderful things I have ever seen done in a merchandising way, have never been published, because the facts could not be told without wising up the slow-poke whose slowness made competition with him a gold mine.

Often we hear of "too many lumber yards" in a placa And very often there ARE too many. But these live merchants all agree that there is always room for one more in the town where Mr. Pip operates.