The buyer should explain to the seller that the seller can get the best of him once and may be twice, but not more than that.
The main thing for the buyer to possess is a most thorough knowledge of the goods he buys. Learn who makes the goods and where they are made, and get at the factory cost.
Then learn whose factories have the best reputation, and whose are the best fitted and established to make the goods you buy.
Remember you can afford to investigate. When you find a factory over-sold you will find that factory more independent. When you find a factory short of orders you will find them eager for your trade, and the chances are you can do much better with this factory than with the one that is behind on its orders.
Don't get excited, don't hurry. Speak gently. Know your ground. Cultivate a reputation for fairness rather than smoothness. Laxity and indifference in buying means that you are allowing wastes and leaks to creep in your business, and that you are placing a handicap on your traveling salesman, for goods well bought are half sold.
Expenses
If you get confidential with Mr. Bradstreet or Mr. Dun so that they will give you access to the inside history of the commercial concerns which have failed in business, you will quickly discover that in the majority of cases the cause of the failure was "too much expense."
It has become quite a common saying in speaking of failures that "the expenses ate up the profits."
Our friends Mr. Dun and Mr. Bradstreet tell us that there is about one concern in fifty which succeeds in business. If you will look at the successes you will find out that the proprietors were good buyers as well as good sellers but that the particular point that made them successful was their ability to make careful analysis in the matter of expenses.