Wagon-route coffee-retailing began to make itself felt seriously about the year 1900. At first, the premiums usually consisted of a cup and saucer with the first order, the customer being led to continue buying until at least a full set of dishes had been acquired. Later, the range of premiums was expanded; until today the wagon man offers several hundred different articles that can be used in the home or for personal wear or adornment. Practically all the leading wagon-route concerns favor the advance premium method; that is, a special canvasser induces a consumer to contract for a large quantity of coffee and other products in return for receiving the premium at once, though the coffee is delivered only as the customer wants it, generally two pounds every two weeks. The wagon man delivers the coffee, and is usually held responsible for the customer fulfilling the agreement, and is expected to secure repeat orders with other premiums.
A Premium Tea and Coffee Dealer's Display Room
This is the headquarters store of the Geo. F. Hellick Co., Easton, Pa., a successful wagon coffee distributer. The premium merchandise is shown in the foreground: the sales counter, coffee mill, and display of teas, coffees, extracts, spices, etc., being in the right background
The importance of the wagon-route plan of coffee-retailing is shown by the fact that in 1921 there were six hundred houses of this kind in the United States; and it was estimated that they distributed eight percent of the total amount of the coffee consumed in the country. The biggest company was capitalized at $16,000,000, and operated eleven hundred wagons. Most of the wagon-route concerns were operating in the central states, practically one-third of them covering the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Iowa. Pennsylvania is also a wagon-route-dealer center.
Typical Chain-Store Interior Equipment
This is the Atlantic & Pacific Co.'s store in Rhinebeck, New York. There are nearly 5,000 other stores like it in the United States
The premium wagon-route distributers have an organization called the National Retail Tea and Coffee Merchants' Association. It is composed of 126 members—all of whom use premiums—who operate over two thousand wagons. The largest single wagon-route operator is the Jewel Tea Company of Chicago. The members of this organization claimed to have served more than 2,000,000 families in 1920.