“Well,” said my friend, “suppose we go to dinner.”
CHAPTER XIX.
A number of traveling men around a Sunday dinner-table, when they feel sure it is going to be a good dinner, is about as entertaining a company as any business man would care to be in. Jokes are necessarily plenty; stories fly about freely, but the man must be very thick-headed who does not pick up bits of information that he is the better for knowing.
At our table were represented knit goods, groceries, cutlery, hardware, crockery, and guns. When the the jokes had flowed about, and firms were being discussed, I heard the dry-goods man say: “Yes, sir, if I wanted to point out two of the longest-headed men who foresaw the coming change in doing business I would mention Butler Bros., of Chicago and New York. I used to sell them notions when they were in Boston, and they were nice men to do business with. It's harder to sell them to-day, for the buyer has grown hardened and cuts to the quick.” “They were the 5-cent counter men, were they not?”
“Yes, 5, 10, and 25 cent counter goods was their hobby, and it beat the great horn spoon to see how the thing spread. Every little cross-roads store had its 5 and 10 cent counters, and manufacturers and jobbers cut in prices to cater to it. Of course it could attract attention only by offering bargains. If a dealer put on his 25-cent counter only such goods as he had been selling at 25 cents, no one would have patronized it. The point in his mind was to attract attention by the bargains he could show. He could make a fair profit on the whole lay-out, but perhaps one-third of the stock was sold very close. Under ordinary circumstances a dealer paying 20 cents for an article would sell it at 30 to 40, but now it went on the 25-cent counter.”
“But it hurt regular trade.”
“Yes, it did to this extent, that it led men to dabble in things not in their own line. The dealer was apt to do the most cutting in such goods as were not in his regular line. He was inclined to be stiff on his own goods, but say he was a dry-goods dealer, it did not hurt him to cut on tin dippers, wash-basins, wooden-ware, etc. So when the hardware men followed with their cheap counters they were most inclined to cut on notions, and in fact the cheap-counter business has very much to do in the mixing up of trades and the demoralization of prices.”
“Don't you think it was the basis of department stores?”