Wholesale.
Remember the consumer must get your goods under your trade-mark when they are fit, to make him want more.
Besides making your goods so they will keep as long as possible, and packing them so as to exclude dampness, you should endeavor to know about the goods in the dealers’ hands so that the consumer may buy nothing stale.
Seldom is it advisable to sell pop-corn through jobbers because they merely provide another shelf for the goods to grow old on. Therefore, sell to the retailer and follow him up every few days.
If a retailer does not sell a particular kind of pop-corn you have sold him, take it back and give him another to try. If that does not go, try another. His trade will like some kind of pop-corn. When you have found the right kind, you have a steady customer adding to your sales. Possibly his trade wants penny pieces, perhaps package goods; five-cent, ten-cent, pound. Instead of one for a cent cake, maybe there is sale for the same goods in smaller, two for a cent cakes. Possibly raisins or nuts or cocoanut and pop-corn may be preferred. An examination of his class of customers will help decide.
Include in the box of goods a small, neat price sign. If package goods, include one glass-covered package for display. All these selling helps work to your benefit.
Follow the experience of cracker, breakfast food and other manufacturers. Advertise through window displays in prominent locations, and give away samples. Furnish show-cases, shelves, racks, counter displays, etc. Get your goods up, on top, in front, where the public, the consumers, must see. Get samples into their mouths so they may get a taste.
If you must sell through jobbers, number your packages. Keep a record of the numbers on your shipping orders. Plainly print on your package something like this: “To insure the public receiving our goods in wholesome condition this number 2746 is on our shipping record. If you receive this package in unfit condition, send it to us and you get right back two fresh from our packing table. Only by satisfying the public do we expect to have our business prosper.”
By shipping in tin cans, or waxed paper sealed packages, you increase the keeping life of your goods.
CHAPTER VII
NATIONAL CONFECTIONERS’ ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES, ORGANIZED 1884
This should be your association. Do you belong?