On the other hand, innumerable sales are sacrificed through reliance upon mere assertion of value, or upon discounts or marked-down prices, with a consequent failure to deliver, at the end, a convincing demonstration of value. In such a demonstration construction and materials will occupy the spotlight.
CONSTRUCTION LESS INTERESTING TO WOMEN THAN MATERIALS
American women are not too much interested, as a rule, in the construction of the articles they buy. This is not because they regard sound construction as unimportant, but because they have been taught to take it more or less for granted. Their chief concern in any product lies in what it will do for them, and they do not care a great deal about how that result is insured. An analysis of magazine advertising will reveal the fact that construction is rarely used as an advertising appeal; a count of several current issues indicates about 1 case in 20.
There is a much wider interest in materials, including furniture woods and the floor covering, drapery, and upholstery fabrics; though even here the primary concern of the great majority of buyers is with the effect of these materials upon their homes and themselves rather than with the materials as such. According to an industry survey, 6 women out of 100 have no interest in furniture; 61 are interested in it primarily as a means of making their homes more attractive; 16 are chiefly interested in furniture woods; 14 in style or appearance; and 3 in construction.
HOW THIS ATTITUDE OF MIND AFFECTS OUR INTERESTS
The widespread disposition of women to take construction and materials for granted tends to reduce emphasis upon quality, forces prices toward unnecessarily low levels, and cuts down volume and profits. It encourages the production of poor merchandise, thereby undermining public confidence in furniture and furniture dealers.
A sound knowledge both of materials and of construction will help demonstrate the superior value of more costly merchandise when such merchandise lies within the customer's buying power. This knowledge, properly used, will of course enable sales to be speeded up, a larger number of customers to be waited on, and a larger percentage of sales to be made. Even when the salesman is emphasizing woods and fabrics, the materials of which home furnishings are made, he must win the customer's confidence in the quality of construction, the craftsmanship with which these materials are put together, if he would effectively minimize what to him is price resistance.
PRINCIPAL FURNITURE WOODS
In all periods of high civilization men have felt a deep interest in the furniture woods. The sheer beauty of these woods, their association in sentiment and legend with the noble trees of many lands, their never-ending, never-repeating variations of figure and shading, the romantic stories of their journeyings by ship or caravan from the far ends of the earth—these things always have delighted men and women of taste.
Undoubtedly they who sell furniture know too little about the furniture woods, talk too little about them, make far too little use of their powerful appeal to the eye and the emotions. If they can learn to know them intimately, and to regard them, not as merchandise merely, but as something fine and nobly beautiful, they cannot fail to inspire widespread admiration and desire for ownership.