Retail Shoe Salesmanship

by George F. Hamilton; Frank Butterworth; H. T. Conner; A. H. Geuting

STOCK ARRANGEMENT

The size of a store and its inside arrangement will have a great deal to do with the way in which the layout of the stock is to be planned. However, there are some important points to be remembered which apply regardless of the amount of room available for storing the stock or the kind of fixtures used.

A plan well worth following is that of keeping to the front the stock first purchased so that it may get first attention on the part of the salespeople. The tendency is to give the most prominent position to goods just received and to overlook the goods that have been in stock for some time. We naturally forget the things that are out of sight. To do this with the stock means to pile up a number of short lines that will later have to be sold at a sacrifice. Thus a loss results that might have easily been avoided through a little care in the arrangement of stock.

The following are some valuable suggestions on the care of stock made by Mr. Conner of the George E. Keith Stores Company:

We shall assume that the salesman is required to do a certain amount of stock work—that a certain number of sections are given to him to be cared for. Rightly, he should take as much pride in this stock as he would in new furnishings in his home. The contents of the cartons should be kept clean and presentable at all times. A liberal amount of tissue paper should be kept between the shoes, and it should be well straightened out. The cartons should be kept clean so that the salesman might justly feel proud of the appearance of the goods if a customer should enter the store hurriedly and notice a certain number in the stock. The appearance of a particular pair of shoes pulled out should be such that the customer would receive the impression that it had just arrived from the factory. There should be the look of freshness and newness that would at once appeal to the customer and influence his decision in favor of buying.

The control of a stock section given over to a salesman does not mean simply that the stock is to be kept clean and salable. Depending on the volume of business and the size of stock carried in the particular store, there are a minimum number of pairs of shoes that constitute a profitable line. Assuming that the business cannot operate profitably any one line of shoes when there are less than twelve pairs, as soon as any one of the lines in the salesman’s charge is brought down to that number he should at once take sizes and report the facts to his manager. He should take sizes on his stock at least twice a week and should know that no sizes are in the stock room that should be on the shelves.

Another point of importance in connection with neatness and order in the stock is that of returning to their proper places goods that have been taken out to be shown to the customer. The slip-shod way is to put the shoes in wherever there happens to be an empty space. The result of doing this is that either the pair will be lost trace of, or it will cause unnecessary work on the part of someone else in weeding out stock incorrectly placed and in putting it where it properly belongs. It is as easy to return stock to the special place provided for it as it is to pick out the wrong place. The goods when rightly placed can always be found when wanted without loss of time and effort on the salesman’s part spent in searching around among half a dozen places where he or someone else might have put them.

TIME SAVING

W. W. Willson, manager of retail stores for Rice & Hutchins, considers the matter of a thorough acquaintance with the stock of particular value to avoid wasting the customer’s time. He says:

The average customer today demands dispatch when making a purchase. Dispatch does not mean to carelessly rush through a sale, but to do away with unnecessary loss of time. People as a rule have numerous things to attend to either in a business or social way, and they will not waste valuable time waiting while some uninformed salesperson tries to serve them and makes a blunder of it. The customer invariably remembers an experience with this kind of salesperson and makes a special point to avoid him when the next purchase is made. He will find the salesman who knows the stock.