Adventures in Thrift

by Anna Steese Richardson

“That’s about it,” assented Mr. Larry, “and it will not be until the farmer and the housewife establish an amicable understanding as to prices.”

“And now, Teresa, for our department-store experiences,” said Mrs. Larry.

“Our first lesson in department-store sleuthing was the fact that the bargain counter is the natural enemy to thrift; the second, that the woman who buys, not for to-day alone, but for next week, next month, next year, must demand standardized goods.

“First, as to bargain sales: If a merchant announces silk gloves at seventy-nine cents, formerly sold for one dollar, one of two conditions exists-either he overcharged his customers when he sold the gloves for one dollar, or he is losing money on the gloves at seventy-nine cents. Men are not in business to lose money. We, therefore, conclude that the gloves at one dollar were overpriced, so we are getting no bargain at seventy-nine cents. None of the prices in such a store are, therefore, reliable.

“Next we trailed a ribbon sale. Here we found one lot of ribbons offered at twenty-one cents, usual price twenty-five cents; and another lot at eleven cents, usual price fifteen and seventeen cents. We secured samples of both lots and then sleuthed. We found that the same quality and design employed in the twenty-one-cent lot was actually to be bought at the regular counter at twenty-five cents a yard, but with this difference—the bargain-counter ribbon was three inches wide, the ribbon at the regular counter about four inches wide. In other words, the bargain-counter ribbon was priced at just what it was worth—twenty-one cents. It was not worth twenty-five cents, because at the regular counter the twenty-five-cent ribbon was nearly an inch wider.

“The ribbon at eleven cents was such in name only. It was the flimsiest sort of cotton, almost transparent, wiry and highly mercerized. We duplicated it at a near-by five and ten-cent store for ten cents a yard, one cent cheaper than it was offered at the big department store.

“The lure of such bargains lies in the cleverly worded signs, fancy articles beautifully made up from the ribbon by women expert in securing effects, and in the wonderful mass of blended colors which blind women to quality.

“At another store we saw a crowd of women buying upholstery goods, specially priced and heavily advertised. The sale included couch covers, fabrics by the yard, and squares for cushion tops. The couch covers, marked as having been sold at eleven dollars, now reduced to five-ninety-eight, were worth just that, five-ninety-eight. The really good values had evidently been used for window display and were faded in streaks by the sun. The fresher covers were in fabrics and designs now out of style. The firm was either unloading for itself or for some jobbing house a lot of couch covers that were out of date.

“Among the cushion tops we picked up three real bargains, evidently odd pieces that had sold in the piece at a much higher rate. But mixed in with these desirable squares were hundreds of others, plainly cut off the bolts we saw later in the regular department, and priced higher than they could be bought at the counter, by the yard.”

“Isn’t that universally true,” asked Mr. Norton, “that merchants cut off unsalable stuff and offer it as ‘remnants’ when it does not sell from the bolt?”