Commerzienrat

“ It is not just that the manufacturer who owns a mill, or he who merely owns a warehouse, and employs out-door work-people—that the dealer in money, the discounter, the various large agencies, the merchant who transacts his business in a single office and sends his ship all over the world, and the great carriers, because their business happens not to be rateable according to the law, should bear no greater burden than the shop-keepers in a great London thoroughfare. ”

“ This caused a new factor to enter the organisation—the merchant manufacturer, whose function it was to attend to the marketing of goods produced in each one particular industry. The wider the distance in point of time and place between producers and consumers, the more important did the functions of the merchant manufacturer become, until he, in fact, controlled the industry by virtue of his possession of capital. Without capital the gap between producer and consumer could not be bridged. ”

“ Those brutes of keepers who beat you told me that at the first touch of the lash you gave a terrible jump the length of your chain. But, you see, friend Bull, if I offer you to the purchasers with the dangerous account which you give, I shall find few customers. An honest merchant should not boast his merchandise too much, no more should he underestimate it. ”

“ Any two shopkeepers, in insufficient employment, who agreed to deal at each other's shops so long as they could there purchase articles of as good a quality as elsewhere, and at as low a price, would render the nation a service. It may be said that they must previously have dealt, to the same amount, with some other dealers ”

“ Each merchant could ship on his own a certain number of cloths each year, the number depending on the length of his membership in the company. He could sell them himself or by his factor at the place where the company had privileges of market. Strict rules governed the conduct of each member. He was to make sales only at certain hours on specified days. All disagreements were to be settled by the company's governor, or his deputy in residence, and those officials dealt with such disputes as arose between members of the company and continental officials and buyers. ”

“ The commission-merchant is the type, the highest expression, of monopoly, the embodiment of commerce, that is, of civilization. Every function depends upon his, participates in it, or is assimilated to it: for, as from the standpoint of the distribution of wealth the relations of men with each other are all reducible to exchanges,—that is, to transfers of values,—it may be said that civilization is personified in the commission-merchant. ”

“ This department has been created for supplying any members requiring large quantities, and with a view to supply the cooperative stores of Lancashire and Yorkshire, whose small capital- do not enable them to buy in the best markets, nor command the services of what is otherwise indispensable to every store—a good buyer, who knows the markets and his business, who knows what, how, and where to buy. The wholesale department guarantees purity, quality, fair prices, standard weight and measure, but all on the never-failing principle, cash payment. ”

“ The commission men are essential in making the sales without which the flow of the current would be obstructed, and this, whether they are made to packers or dealers. The dealers are essential to the sales to the stock farmers and feeders. The sales are not in this aspect merely local transactions. ”

“ Each wholesale establishment is usually divided into several departments; and at the head of each department is placed one of these functionaries. A buyer is a partially-independent sub-trader. At the beginning of the year he is debited with a certain share of the capital of his employers. With this capital he trades. From the makers he orders for his department such goods as he thinks will find a market; and for the goods thus bought he obtains as large a sale as he can among the retailers of his connexion. ”

“ The only real saving which buying direct from producers insures is the eliminated profit of the wholesaler, with a possible reduction of the expense for salesmen whom wholesalers must employ. Competition in buying has forced the joint creation by small concerns of buying organizations which, united, represent as large a buying power as the chain or department stores. Coöperation in buying certain classes of goods has strong advantages both for dealers and consumers. ”

“ Commission merchants receive and sell goods belonging to others for a compensation called a commission. A selling agent is a person who represents a manufacturing establishment in its dealings with the trade. The factory may be located in a small town, while the selling agent has his office and samples in the heart of a great city. As regards the quantity of goods bought or sold in a single transaction, trade is divided into wholesale and retail. The wholesale dealer sells to other dealers, while the retail dealer sells to the consumer—that is, the person who consumes, or uses, the goods. ”

“ The wholesale trade is conducted by three classes of persons: dealers or merchants, commission men, and brokers. The dealer is one who buys the goods outright and takes his own risk on making a favorable sale to the retailer. The commission man is one who receives the goods, sells them at such price as he may be able to obtain and remits to the seller the amount obtained less expenses and his commission. The broker is a man who effects a sale without coming in contact in any way with the materials sold. ”

“ In our judgment, the work of the employees in these cases had such a close and immediate tie with the process of production for commerce, and was therefore so much an essential part of it, that the employees are to be regarded as engaged in an occupation 'necessary to the production of goods for commerce'. ”

“ It may happen that, at particular conjunctures, where the markets are overstocked, and there is a competition among the sellers, this may not be practicable; but in the general course of trade, the demand for consumption preponderates, and the merchant can with ease indemnify himself, and even obtain a profit on the advance. As a consumer, he pays his share of the duty ”

“ The ordinary commission on transactions in wheels is 25 per cent. I am going to sell the Manitou retail at twenty English pounds apiece. You shall hev your 25 per cent. on all orders.'
'Five pounds for every machine I sell?' I exclaimed, overjoyed.
He nodded. 'That's so.'
I was simply amazed at this magnificent prospect. 'The cycle trade must be honeycombed with middlemen's profits!' I cried; for I had my misgivings.
'That's so,' he replied again. 'Then jest you take and be a middlewoman.'
'But, as a consistent socialist——'
'It is your duty to fleece the capitalist and the consumer. ”

“ Competition, even in a single product, is not cast in a single mold. Maximum prices may be fixed too low for the dealer to furnish services essential to the value which goods have for the consumer or to furnish services and conveniences which consumers desire and for which they are willing to pay. Maximum price fixing may channel distribution through a few large or specifically advantaged dealers who otherwise would be subject to significant nonprice competition. ”

“ The appellants produced evidence to prove that there are many points of difference between chain stores and independently owned units. These consist in quantity buying, which involves the application of the mass process to distribution, comparable to the mass method used in production; buying for cash and obtaining the advantage of a cash discount; skill in buying, so as not to overbuy, and at the same time keep the stores stocked with products suitable in size, style, and quality for the neighborhood customers who patronize them ”

“ The merchant or manufacturer protects himself against his risk of loss by making another addition to the price of the goods he sells. Usually the goods pass through several hands; those of the jobber, the Western or Southern wholesale dealer, and the retailer, before they reach the consumer. ”

“ One of the most important phases of marketing reform is the regulation of commission dealers. Many farmers commonly ship their produce to commission dealers in the city. These dealers are supposed to sell this produce and to return to the farmer the money thus secured, minus a small commission. In many instances these middlemen return to the farmer smaller sums than market conditions entitle the farmer to. At the same time, commission dealers often add an excessive amount to the price which they in turn ask of retailers and consumers. ”

“ The other was the Company of Stationers, which desired to keep the trade in the hands of its privileged members and objected to any increase in the number of presses, or of booksellers, because the greater the number the smaller the profits of the monopolists. The duty of meeting a legitimate demand weighed little with men who cared for nothing save their own interests, and naturally, the Company seeking its privileges from the Government, was at all times the willing instrument of that Government. ”

“ Producers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers naturally all desire to extend their sales, to reach further markets in competition with their rivals, and are supported in this desire by the communities to whose welfare [106] they contribute. Any difference in freight rates that gives a producer of raw material, a manufacturer, a wholesale distributer, or a retail merchant an advantage over a competitor of another locality is therefore promptly made the subject of complaint. ”

“ Such as are venders of goods and merchandise will not take the advantage of the scarcity of goods that may be occasioned by this association, but will sell the same at the rate we have been respectively accustomed to do for twelve months last past: and if any vender of goods or merchandise shall sell any such goods on higher terms, or shall in any manner or by any device whatsoever depart from this agreement, no person ought, nor will any of us deal with any such person, or his or her factor or agent at any time hereafter, for any commodity whatever. ”

“ New companies were incorporated for many trades, the ostensible reason being the supervision of the quality of the wares produced in that trade. (Shoemakers, haberdashers, saddlers, and curriers exercised close supervision over these wares.) They paid heavily for their patents or charters.
There was no sharp line between craftsman and shopkeeper or between shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising citizen could pass freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing money for a new enterprise was common. ”

“ Such wholesalers are known variously as commission dealers and brokers.
While goods are being gathered together in wholesale quantities and made ready for distribution to the retail trade other factors in marketing frequently enter in, factors of a speculative nature. Well-standardized goods that are not readily perishable, such as grain, cotton, wool, silk, provisions, coffee, sugar and so on, are likely to be bought purely for speculative purposes. ”

“ They can never show, even at the time the Company had their shop and magazines there well supplied, that the goods were sold at more than fifty per cent. profit, in conformity with the Exemptions. The forestalling of the goods by one and another, and their trying to get this profit, cannot be prevented by the Director, the more so as the trade was thrown open to both those of small and those of large means. ”

“ On the other hand, large manufacturers in many trades (of which the boot trade is an example which must have come under the notice of every reader) are tending to open retail shops of their own in favourable localities, so as to obtain the retailer’s commission as well as the manufacturer’s profit. Evidently these large manufacturer-shopkeepers are more likely to be extensive advertisers than small one-shop retailers. ”

“ Consumers and dealers again became liberal buyers and their lead was soon followed by the speculative fraternity. Our office was crowded with business and a further increase in the clerical force was imperative. Long hours and hard work was the rule, while resulting profits continually mounting higher was the reward.
Our customers as a class were a fine lot of men, all of substantial means, most of them wealthy. We had no friction, we were popular with all, and other things being equal we commanded the preference from almost the entire trade. ”

“ A profit quota is sometimes assigned to each department, for which the buyer is responsible. In other words, in the management of the buying and selling activities and therefore in the control of his merchandise stock the buyer is supreme, subject to the general limitations placed by the financial resources at his disposal. Under the control of the buyer, therefore, will be stock clerks, the clerks which mark and re-mark the merchandise, and the sales force. ”

“ They must deal with the small retailers, must buy perhaps on credit, and these small retail dealers who cannot sell even the same quality of goods so cheaply as the largest retailers, because of their small capital and the large proportional expenses of their business, must knowingly or unknowingly buy adulterated goods in order to sell at the lower prices required, and to meet the competition of the others. ”