Adventures in Thrift

by Anna Steese Richardson

“Not always,” replied Teresa Moore. “Many sales are bona fide. A jobber or manufacturer overloads with certain fabrics or products, and is forced to raise cash. He prefers to get rid of his entire overproduction at cost, than to lose in the long run. The merchant who secures these big lots for cash can give his customers the benefit of a bona fide sale, and he does this in a legitimate way entirely satisfactory to the customer.”

“Which means that a woman must know what she is buying,” added Mrs. Norton. “I saw two women fairly quarreling over some shirts which each wanted to buy for her husband. The woman who finally won on the score that she had picked them up first, was opening her purse, when she gave a little cry: ‘Oh, I can’t take them. I don’t know his number,’ The other woman did know her husband’s shirt size and carried them off in triumph.”

When the laughter had subsided, Mrs. Moore continued her story.

“At another bargain counter we looked at silver-plated breakfast knives, as I needed to renew my set. Half a dozen knives put up in a fancy box, lined with cheap, cotton-back satin, were offered to us at one dollar and ninety-eight cents. I looked at the mark, ‘Superfine, triple-plate,’ That was all. In the regular silver department, we asked for and were shown, at three dollars and ninety-eight cents per half dozen, breakfast knives made by a responsible firm which spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every year advertising its wares. There was no fancy box, no showy silk, but a trademark. The salesgirl explained that, while no actual guarantee went with the knives, they were supposed to last fifteen to twenty years, with reasonable treatment. If within a few years after the date of purchase the customer returned a knife in bad condition, and could prove that she had not used scouring soap or strong cleansers in polishing it, the damaged knife would be made good by the manufacturers. The difference in price of two dollars no doubt represents the better wearing value of the standard metal, and at least it protects the purchaser.

“In our shopping investigations, which covered four mornings, we found that almost invariably the goods pushed by the salespeople or shown most prominently were not standardized wares; they were imitations of standard goods, often so flimsy as to betray the adulteration. By asking for standardized goods, we could secure them. Now there must be a reason for the prominence given the unstandardized goods, and we have decided that the stores make a bigger profit on them, even though the price is less, than on the standardized goods. Therefore, we are not getting so much for our money.”

“Just what do you mean by standardized goods?” asked Mr. Norton.

“In fabrics, those which have the name of the maker woven in the border, or printed plainly on the board or carton in which the materials are offered; in china, cut glass, silverware and writing paper, a trade mark blown, stamped or woven in the article; in hosiery, underwear, corsets, shields, ready-to-wear garments of all sorts, the stamp of the maker. To sum up, generally speaking, wares that are made by a well known concern willing to put its name on them and thus to stand back of them.”

“But how can you be sure, even with a trade mark, that these goods will wear satisfactorily?” asked Mr. Larry.

“We don’t know anything,” said Mrs. Larry, “but it stands to reason that a man who spends thousands to make his goods known to us women will not give us a chance to say to our neighbors that what he guarantees is unreliable. In every case where the goods were made by a reputable firm and bore their trade mark, the salespeople told us we could bring them back if they were not satisfactory. This, because the merchant knows that he can hold the manufacturer for any faulty output of the factory.

“Take, for instance, dress shields; if they bear no firm name and go to pieces in the first washing, they must be thrown away, but a washable dress shield, bearing the name of the manufacturer, can be taken to the store and exchanged for a perfect pair, without any question as to where it was bought or what price was paid for it.