Cooper Campaign Puts Hardwood Flooring on Cash Basis in Los Angeles District

"There is nothing new under the sun," quoth a famous philosopher of ye olden times. - He 'was wrong. On rdther, he had lived to see it. There IS. ,It is most remarkably new, and is making much talk in the lumber and building business in Los Angeles.

The entirely new thing is HARDWOOD FLOORING FOR STRICTLY CASH.

And this is how it happened. On March 22nd, 1926, the W. E. Cooper Lumber Company, of Los Angeles, wholesalers of lumber with a big distributing and storage yard in this city, sent out two letters. ,One of them went to the lumber trade of the city. The other went to the hardwood flooring contractors of the city. They were practically alike in character. It announced that on ancl after March 29th, hardwood flooring would be sold for cash only {rom Cooper's yard. This affected only flooring, and not lumber.

It created a mild sensation. Most folks said it couldn't be done, and wouldn't last. On March 29th Cooper came out with a brand new price list, cash only, regardless of how big or how little the buyer might.be. The prices were a substantial reduction from his immediately preceding credit prices.

For a few days Cooper's flooring business lagged. Why ? Because his cash proposition cut off entirely as prospective purchasers, scores-yes, HUNDREDS of people who previous to that time had been buying hardwood flooring. Cut them off because they were accustomed to buying for credit strictly, letting the Fardwood yard carry the eniire load of credits, liens, etc., although they were "flooring contractors" and bought flooring for the same price that the biggest and best retail lumber dealer paid for it.

It didn't take the retail lumber yards long to discover that whatever this new move might mean in the long run, it was apparent that they could get a bargain in their hard- aimed at one big thing, namely, the elimination of a credit situation that was onerolrs, to say the least, and unfair to the wholesale yards as well as to the well financed hardwood flooring contractors, and to the retail lumber yards.

The general result is that as this goes to press, Cooper is still selling hardwood flooring for cash only, and is one of nine big hardwood lumber wholesalers who have orgarized themselves on a cash basis. The difference is that the others have issued TWO ,price lists, one for cash, and the other for credit business, the credit price being about l0/a over the price. Cooper issues no credit list, but joins the others on the cash list.

So a California Lumber }lerchant man dropped down to ask W. E. Cooper what it was all about, why he started this new wrinkle, and he told the story directly, interestingly, and convincingly, something like this:

"Are you aware of the fact that before we started this cash selling of hardwood flooring, there were over four hundred so-called hardwood flooring contractors in Los Angeles. Here is the list. Many of them were and are all right, financially, morally, ard otherwise. Most of them were simply hardwood laborers, without finances or responsibility.

"A printed card made a man a hardwood flooring contractor. Many of them had no other investment. Yet this entitled them to buy hardu'ood flooring at the same price as a million dollar lumber firm who bought outright, paid their bills, etc.

"Most of these flooring contractors would not even take the trouble to secure a lien ancl transfer it to us to safeguard the flooring they "bought" from us, and laid on the jobs they got. We had to go to the trouble to secure our own liens, carry our own credits, and take all the chances in every hardwood floor these people laid. We had infinite wood flooring by simply sending the cash with the truck or order, and Cooper's business with the retail yard, grew apace. Some of the big retailers tried sending their order without the money, and the truck went back empty. "No reflection on your credit" Mr. Cooper assured them, "simply ouf new policy that must apply to all."

What the other wholesale yards thought about it, belongs not in this story. They evidently saw that the Cooper idea trouble and big losses. I am sure all the others in our line did likewise. It was a situation that was thoroughly unbusinesslike, and needed to be rectified.

"The way to straighten it out was simple. Make these folks pay cash for their hardwood flooring, and you get rid of them, for they couldn't trade that way. In.so doing we

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