A mere passing comment which, in the old days of merchandising, might easily have been ignored. In Macy's it is not ignored. The clerk who hears this remark makes a note of it and sends through to the comparison department what is technically known as a customer's complaint. Immediate investigation is made, the prices checked up, and, if the casual shopper is right, Macy's prices are at once readjusted to the six per cent. below the competitor's charges. It has been found, however, that nearly ninety per cent. of this sort of complaints are incorrect. Two articles, in separate stores, may look so nearly alike that a casual inspection will not reveal any difference, and, therefore, competing goods must often be subjected to expert examination and even to analysis. A magnifying glass is used to count the threads in a fabric; woolens are boiled in chemical solutions to determine whether there is any adulteration; and cotton goods, such as sheets and pillow cases, are weighed, washed and weighed again to ascertain to what extent they are loaded. For Macy's is just to itself, as well as to the public.
As has been indicated already, there are some things that the store as a matter of policy does not sell—pianos, chief of all. But that does not mean that there is, in the minds of its managers, the slightest excuse for its shelves not holding the things that it ought to sell. A large difference, this, and one which is constantly being checked by members of the shopping staff of the comparison department—going through its floors and inquiring in the various departments for goods for which there is little ordinary demand, and so a considerable likelihood of their not being found in stock. If an article requested is not found in stock, the shopper immediately buys something else—so as to get the number of the salesclerk. Then a report is made to the department buyer in order that he may see whether or not the clerk has followed up the inquiry.
Incidentally, the shopper's report upon this entire transaction takes into account all the details regarding the manner in which the sales are handled and even notes the speed with which the parcel is wrapped and the change returned. It is not a spying system, but part of the store's honest effort to keep its efficiency at the highest notch. Naturally the shoppers of its comparison department are not known as such to its salesforce—for this reason the personnel of the corps must be under constant change—and it is equally evident that their anonymity is carefully preserved in their dealings with other stores. They are all well-bred young women, ranging in type from the flapper to the matron, and each is so carefully trained to act her part that it is quite impossible to distinguish them from the store's bona fide shoppers.
Another of their duties is to report upon the speed of Macy deliveries. Once a month, at a certain prearranged time of day, a similar purchase is made at each of the largest stores in the city, including Macy's. These are all ordered sent to the same address and a record is made of the length of time it takes each to arrive. In the report that is finally made of the test details are included showing the manner in which all the packages are wrapped in order that Macy service may at all times be held up at least to the standard of its competitors.
In the highly scientific machine of modern business, the test is as valuable as in other machines. I have stood in a great sugar refinery and watched the workmen from time to time draw off tiny phials of the sweetish fluid in order that they might show under laboratory examination that the machine was functioning at its highest point. And so are the tiny phials of Macy service drawn from the machine. If they show that, even in the slightest degree, the great machine of retail merchandising is functioning below its highest efficiency, it becomes the immediate business of the management to correct the loss.
"I tell my people not to come to me with reports that everything is going well," says its general manager, "I only want to know when things begin to slip. Then it is my job to set them straight once again."
One thing more, before we are quite done with this sketch of the organization of a great merchandising institution. It is, in this case, a most important thing:
With the credit system in force in nearly, if not quite, every other large store in the New York metropolitan district, Macy's for years has had to encounter a considerable sentiment against its policy of doing a cash business only. For there always has been a desirable class of trade represented by customers who, for one reason or another, find it most inconvenient to pay their bills monthly—people whose means and credit are unimpeachable. At one time it looked as if R. H. Macy & Company would either have to forego their custom or else make exceptions to their long established rule. The former they could do; the latter they would not. But—
Out of this very need for furnishing customers with the convenience of some sort of a charge account grew a great Macy specialty—the depositors' account department which, while making no concessions to the store's rock-ribbed principle of selling for cash, solved a very great problem in its touch with its public. It turned the costly credit privilege into an asset both for the customer and for the store. The very thought was revolutionary! What, ask a customer to pay in advance; to have money on deposit with R. H. Macy & Company, private bankers, to pay for normal purchases for a whole thirty days to come! It couldn't be done. New York would never, never stand for it. Every one outside of the store was sure that it never could be done. And a good many inside, as well. Yet the thing deemed impossible has come to pass. The idea was sound. The plan today is successful, even beyond the dreams of its promoters. With fifteen thousand depositors, its total deposits—money placed into the store to be drawn against solely for merchandise purchases—have reached as high as $2,750,000 at a single time.