Company store

“ At the beginning we can make assertion that in the entire history of retail selling no more ingenious scheme has been devised for the orderly and rapid movement of goods in and out of a department-store. ”

“ Into the quiet of his office filtered a hum of activity exquisite to his ears, the clicking of billing-machines, the whirr of parcel-carriers, the sound of customers’ voices, buying merchandise. Out there the store was smoothly functioning, supplying modern civilization to ten thousand men and women. And it was his store! Not only did he reap the profit—that was a small part of his pleasure. It was his personality which gave all those people the opportunity to satisfy their needs, that was educating them to desire better things. ”

“ Here, then, is the receiving department of this great single retailing machine of modern business. It keeps over three hundred human units constantly upon the move—and, mind you, all that these people are doing is merely making the merchandise ready to sell. The next step is the final one before actual sale; the display of proffered goods—upon the counters and within the plate-glass windows along the street frontages.
This, in the modern department-store, is considered a feature of the utmost importance, and nowhere more so than at Macy's. ”

“ The center shelving will always have stock boxes piled on top and that will throw one side of the store always in shadow. Besides, this arrangement divides the trade and screens half of it from view.
“The stock is cut in two and looks small.
“One salesman can not wait on the furnishing goods trade without neglecting half of it all the time. If you have two clerks, a customer must be taken from one side to the other for his ties or underwear, and there you are again, both on one side at the same time. ”

“ While it is true that large department stores reap many of the advantages and employ many of the methods of a chain store group, such as large capital, buying in quantity, and the ability to command the highest type of management, it is nevertheless evident that, whereas a department store spreads its efforts over a number of different sorts of shops under one roof, the chain store owner concentrates its energy upon the conduct of but one kind of stores located in many neighborhoods. ”

“ Her principal work is to trot around in other stores and learn all she can about their 'specials' and prices, and get all the information possible in order to keep her employers posted on what their rivals are doing, and besides that she is expected to prowl around this store at irregular intervals, and we are not supposed to know that she isn't a legitimate customer. ”

“ Stucker, with your stock under the tables, and the check you will get will help buy New Way sectional shelving that will give you about three times the capacity your furnishing department has now; so it will not be necessary to climb to the ceiling for your active stock or dig under the tables for your out of season goods.
“Before we discuss detail, Mr. Lambert,” continued the salesman, “I have something to say about the practical arrangement of the inside of the store.
“The business of a store is to sell goods. ”

“ All the products are brought together into a common store, and sold for the benefit of the associates. No member is permitted to dispose of a single piece of his workmanship to a purchaser; he may not sell in gross any more than he may in detail. ”

“ The woman who shops for a dress, hat, or coat in a modern store neither expects nor desires to see the entire stock or any considerable part of it. She is comfortably seated in a well-lighted room which contains little, if any, exposed merchandise. The salesperson, after a quick mental appraisal, asks a few leading questions, and brings from the stockroom one, two, or possibly three models, carefully chosen on the basis of suitability, size, and style. If these are rejected they are removed, and a second small selection brought out. ”

“ Perhaps when we make use of the term ‘Brokers’ Shop,’ the minds of our readers will at once picture large, handsome warehouses, exhibiting a long perspective of French-polished dining-tables, rosewood chiffoniers, and mahogany wash-hand-stands, with an occasional vista of a four-post bedstead and hangings, and an appropriate foreground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps they will imagine that we mean an humble class of second-hand furniture repositories. Their imagination will then naturally lead them to that street at the back of Long-acre, which is composed almost entirely of brokers’ shops ”

“ That is why one can decide quickly, and never need visit two stores."
"And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off goods or marking bundles."
"All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes of articles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the great central warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly from the producers. We order from the sample and the printed statement of texture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to the warehouse, and the goods distributed from there." ”

“ No other branch of business can bear comparison with the wonderful results achieved by Department Stores, such a success as has made them the wonder of modern merchandising. These stores, that have grown to greatness from small beginnings, have a force and power behind them that commands general interest. Their store-keeping rests upon certain well-defined principles, and not upon chance, sensations or experiments. ”

“ One of the most promising fields for American business enterprise I believe to be the organization of retail distribution, which, among other economies, can rid itself of the expense of solicitation. We have already great bazaars which combine the variety of a country store by assembling under one roof the special departments of ordinary city warehouses: is it not possible to organize for such marts stated circles of customers, on whose steady trade the proprietors can rely—circles sufficiently large for adequate support, independently of showy premises or other advertisement? ”

“ A common secondary meaning is that of the place where a supply or stock is kept, a storehouse, and thus the term is used particularly in the country districts of America for the general shop where goods of all kinds are sold by retail. ”

“ I have been privileged with some intimate glances into the greatest of those peculiarly American institutions, the big departmental stores. Materially it is an immense building, containing all things that any upper-middle-class person could conceivably want. Such a store includes even Art, with the same bland omnipotence. ”

“ Such efficiency pays. The Macy folk who come to use it regularly soon find themselves advancing to responsible and highly-paid positions.
It is interesting to follow the career of a sales slip [Pg 179] from the time it is made out—when the sale is made—until the time that it ceases to function. Here is one of the most important items in the mechanism of a large retail store. It is an essential unit of a carefully developed system to keep track of sales, from the minute that they are made until they are finally delivered and audited. ”

“ They are a part of her business capital, which she can—and does—turn to the good account of the store. So she is to her compeer of twenty-five years ago—selling dress-goods in the old Macy store down on Fourteenth Street—as the electric light of today is to the old-fashioned lamps of that day and generation.
Back of this little black-bound notebook there is [Pg 221] system—organization if you would read it that way. Education, of a truth, has become the handmaiden of merchandising. And the store's school has become one of its ranking functions. ”

“ If another customer came along they’d have to stop in the middle of a sale and refer him to a clerk around in the other aisle.
“A furnishing goods department should be continuous. The sale of a shirt will lead to the purchase of a tie or a collar or hosiery. The goods should be in sight so that they automatically suggest themselves.
“You enter this store and the first impression you get is a big clothing store. That is what you want. Clothing dominates the store. Furnishing goods and hats are important and necessary side lines. ”

“ The shop is on the ground floor opening from the street, and the office is up a lane on the second floor, where we have also a warehouse or general store for drapery goods. A man, when he gets his money in the office, may go and buy drapery goods on the second floor, or he may go down stairs and buy provisions. ”

“ Obviously greater specialization in management and methods is possible in the latter type of enterprise than in the former, whose management, however capable, must after all consist of many separate types each devoted to a single store similar to an independent retail store. ”

“ She was beginning to tremble a little for fear the woman would not try her.
"Oh, I guess you'll do if you are not too stuck up," said the buyer carelessly. "Girls who have never worked in a store always think they know it all, and that sort of thing doesn't go, not in my department!"
She led Faith up to one of the gates at the ribbon counter and showed her how to crawl up to the packer's desk above the shelves, where the stock was kept. ”

“ Each store has a definite connection with the central industrial plant, from which it receives its supplies, its workers and its government, for the stores are merely branches of the central work, and all are under the same general management. ”

“ In holding these Macy does not lay claim to originality, except perhaps in the amount of merchandising involved and the spectacularly low prices. Sales are in a large measure opportunities for the store as well as for the customer. It takes a goodly amount of merchandise from a manufacturer who for some reason offers a large concession in price and passes on its advantage to its customers. ”

“ The first aim is to get the best and choicest goods direct from the makers; and, second, to have the lowest prices, thus enlarging the purchasing power of every dollar. A Department Store is different from the ordinary store, by being big enough to deal in almost everything that people need; handling merchandise of every class that goes [Pg 8] well together for all sorts of people; providing the means of doing everything quickly, easily, cheaply.
A store large enough to accommodate thousands of shoppers arranged to serve a purpose. ”

“ Dozens, hundreds, perhaps a [Pg 103] thousand or more shoppers still are left within the store. Each is to be accorded a full opportunity to finish his or her transactions. There is no hurry; no ostensible hurry, at any rate. It would not be good-breeding to hasten the customer upon his way. And a canon of good merchandising is good breeding.
Gradually, however, the late-stayers eliminate themselves. The big doors open to let them out, but never again this day to let newcomers in. No rule of the house is observed more inexorably. And so gradually the store empties itself. ”

“ Under the same general management direction (the third assistant general manager) as the restaurant is the store's supply department—not different very much from the supply department of a big railroad or manufacturing unit—which supplies everything for its consumption, from coal to string; the manufacturing departments in which are produced glass, mattresses, printing, engraving, custom-made shirts, millinery, picture frames and paper novelties; the candy factory over near Tenth Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, which completely fills a big modern six-story building; the telephone service ”

“ A second principle of the store in those early days which has come easily and naturally down to these—when it is accepted retailing principle everywhere—was the marking of the selling price upon each and every article. ”

“ The store itself was a long, low, tumble-down-looking place, with a shed running along its front, under which might almost always be seen a certain number of miserably dressed persons, the customers of the store. ”

“ We, however, who are primarily interested in the shop, are apt to forget that success, instead of hinging upon shop management, depends in many cases mainly upon other elements, namely,—the location of the company, its financial strength and ability, the efficiency of its business and sales departments, its engineering ability, the superiority of its plant and equipment, or the protection afforded either by patents, combination, location or other partial monopoly. ”

“ Should they desire to be shown through the store, it should be arranged. They should be impressed with the manner of doing business, and this effect is best secured where consideration is shown them. It is better to answer the inquiries of customers by accompanying them to the department asked for and requesting a salesperson to wait on them, rather than pointing to that department, and much better to name the salesperson than to use the word "forward." They should see that goods do not collect at any time at the parcel desks, but that they are removed by carriers promptly. ”

“ Man stepped out of a place that I learned later was a kind of store where they sell things, and the new Mr. Man took our box and set it in front of his store, and put a card on it with some words that said, 'For Sale,' and threw us in some green stuff to eat, and there we were, among ever so many things that we had never seen before. ”

“ He cannot live without the store and the store cannot live without the customer. A basis of agreement must be reached. Cannot you give me a little better trade? We speak of a storekeeper as in trade in a large city. ”