“I had a deal with Frary once that amused me. I had been handling a small, one-bladed knife that we paid about 40 cents per dozen for. We made quite a leader of it, but were told, in answer to our last order sent, that the stock was out. We tried to get it two or three times afterward, but without success. The next time I saw one of the men I asked him why the dickens we couldn't get that knife again. 'We have given it up,' I was told; our cost book showed the cost to be 36 cents per dozen, so we supposed we were getting our money back, but somebody had the curiosity to foot up the items not long ago, and found an error in adding of 20 cents; the knife had really cost 56 cents! Fancy a concern doing business in that way!”
“There are any numbers of just such concerns. Every little while you see changes made in prices to correct errors. There's a deal of guessing done around factories, and also a good deal of figuring on what a competitor does. One man learns of a competitor making a certain price, and says, 'If he can sell at that, I can,' and that becomes his price, without his even knowing that he is making money or losing at these figures.”
“I think a good many dealers sell goods by guess, as well as the manufacturers. This is especially true of retailers. A level-headed man, named Root, has got up a series of cost cards that will be of help to the hardware trade, but other lines need them just as much.”
“But all the cards in the world will not keep the blank fools from selling goods at cost. Here is an item in an Eastern paper about two Connecticut concerns who sold 'crazy cloth' (whatever that is) under each other's price, till at last one fool offered it at 1 cent a yard, and then the other came down to ten yards for 5 cents. That was in Sargent's town; probably they had been listening to his free trade slush.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
I fell in with a jolly crowd of commercial men, some salesmen and some heads of houses, at the Tremont, and I have rarely enjoyed an evening more. Of course there were any number of stories told, many jokes cracked, and a deal of chaffing of each other. But if I could have written down all the points made about business they would have been eagerly read by my present audience. One man was cursing the book-keeper, as is usual, when a merchant said:
“There are always two sides to every question, and there is a good deal to be said from the book-keeper's stand-point. Other things being equal, a man who has had office experience makes the best man on the road. Very much of the trouble caused by the book-keeper's letters might be avoided if the traveling man knew enough, or had a little forethought. You say things to your customers ten times worse than the book-keeper ever writes, but a letter looks much more severe than the words you said sounded to the ear. One salesman when collecting will take pains to get certain bills balanced. If the customer offers to pay $50 on account and there is a bill of $53.36 due, or two bills of that sum, he suggests that it would be a good thing to make the payment that amount and wipe these out. Such a man helps the office at home. Another man takes the $50, and does not care a cent if anything is balanced or not. It may be necessary to have a scapegoat in every concern, but the traveler who runs down his office for doing its duty is not smart, and is sowing seed that will grow up to bother him in the near future.”
“Yes,” said another merchant, “and there's a sight more book-keeping than there is any need of. Every little item has to be charged, bill sent, statement sent, and then receipted for when paid. If a jobber wants an ax of a special size, just one, and has to order it from the factory, although he knows the exact cost, it never enters his head to send in cash with the order. He must have as much red-tape over it as if the order was a thousand dozen axes. So the retailer; if a customer wants a gross of screws sent on at once by express, the charge of 22 cents has to go through all the departments. There's too much of it. It's expensive in time, and foolish.”