The South American Tour

by Annie S. Peck

With even the slightest knowledge one might avoid the absurdity of sending lawn mowers to Iquique, a barren desert where for the few and expensive plots of grass not only the water but the soil is imported; or rubber boots to Lima, where only a slight drizzle is ever experienced and small probability exists of need in the back country; or old-fashioned chandeliers on a three-foot stem to places where electricity is employed or where the ceilings are 15 feet high. If ordinary precautions had not been ignored, it would seem foolish to say that before shipping goods one should ascertain whether such articles are wanted in that locality.

It is well to note that except in the case of some novelty, the people know what they want and insist upon having it. They will not take what we think they ought to want or what is convenient for us to send. The Latin Americans are quite as fashionable and up to date as we are; the Indians, on the contrary, want the same thing year after year and for centuries. If their trade is desired their taste must be catered to, for others are ready to supply what they want if we do not.

Permanent commercial interests alone should be sought. Great injury has been inflicted upon the reputation of our merchants by the unjustifiable conduct of manufacturers, who in dull times have sent men abroad to take orders; then, business at home reviving and rush orders being received, they have turned back to their old customers, ignoring the new and leaving their orders unfilled, careless of their embarrassment and inability to supply their needs from any local market. Such trade permanently reverts to the British dealers upon whose steadiness they can rely.

It would seem a gracious act if some of our large manufacturers, instead of wanting the whole earth, should cultivate the South American trade, certain to prove profitable, and leave some of their home market to be taken care of by smaller people not so well prepared for the conquest of distant fields.

The changeableness sometimes exhibited seems extraordinary. An American in Bolivia engaged in a large business with Indians, after much urging and time spent, was persuaded by a traveling man from New Orleans to give him an order for a thousand dollars’ worth of goods to be delivered within six months. About the time they were expected, the American received a letter saying that the firm had concluded not to fill any orders to Bolivia!

A difficulty frequently experienced where cash sales have been made, and an excessive annoyance to the purchaser, is that a draft sent at the same time with the goods if not earlier reaches the consignee a week, a month, or more before the arrival of the merchandise. A month’s interest is lost by the purchaser, with the goods not in hand. When they do arrive they are often not as ordered, deficient in quantity and quality, and naturally that is the end.

It should be superfluous to say that merchandise should be up to the quality of the sample, but not so. Such happenings, common at home, will not work abroad where the tariff is level and competition free.

Further, the goods must be precisely like the sample, not even something better. Men who order two-wheeled vehicles do not want four-wheeled. The latter in some sections are impossible. The assumption that people do not know what they want, or the carelessness which permits of gross mistakes in shipping goods thousands of miles is evidence of crude business ideas and methods.

In most sections a slight difference in price is not so keenly regarded as the quality of the goods and the steadiness of price. It is more agreeable to them that an article should be sold for 30 cents through a period of years than that it should vary from 25 or 28 cents to 32.

Careful packing of goods, a matter of the greatest importance, has for years been continually urged, without avail or with but slight improvement. It is as true now as seven or eight years ago that packages from the United States on the dock in South American ports may be picked out on account of their disreputable appearance. Boxes splitting open, bags and bales ripping apart, many goods lost or ruined, is the continual complaint. Of course there are exceptions. Some houses may have reformed.