Sales

“ These great increases in profits are not due solely to increased volume of business. The sales of these companies in this period increased 150 per cent., much of this increase being due to higher prices rather than to increased volume by weight, but the return of profit increased 400 per cent., or two and one-half times as much as the sales. ”

“ Equally reprehensible was the action of hosts of retail dealers, such as those selling shoes and men's clothing, who maintained the same percentages of profits on sales although the great increase in prices meant greatly increased absolute margins and percentages on investments. ”

“ The Administrator proposed, so far as immediately relevant, to define a retail establishment as one deriving 75% of its income from retail sales and then to define as retail sales those made to private individuals for personal or family consumption, sales of the same items to any other customer if not for resale and if similar in type and quantity, and sales to farmers of goods of the type and quantity used on the ordinary farm. ”

“ A business may decide deliberately to sell part of its output below cost, because, for instance, this will serve as an advertisement, bring it connections, and enable it to obtain a larger profit at a later date, or immediately on other portions of its sales. ”

“ Suppose you have an average of one hundred customers a day, and that, through good salesmanship, you increase the sale to each customer ten cents only. That means that, at the end of the week, by good salesmanship you have increased your sales sixty dollars without any increase in your expenses at all, with the possible exception of the supplies or delivery. ”

“ The last quality of a merchant I shall advert to is the taking care to be properly prepared, in cash or goods in the ordinary course of sale, for the bills which are drawn on them. Now I ask, whether they have ever calculated the clear produce of any given sales, to make them tally with the four million of bills which are come and coming upon them, so as at the proper periods to enable the one to liquidate the other. ”

“ The merchant can see the prices current from nearly every part of the world; arrivals and departures of vessels and of travellers—sales of the great staples and merchandise and their prices, and many such matters of interest to the business man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Circulars are often sent to everyone, making special offers, setting forth forceful reasons why the commodity advertised is indispensable. Certain stores make it a point to announce cheap sales once or twice a year, with from 10 to 25 per cent. ”

“ One house deals exclusively in tea, coffee, and spices, with sales amounting to fifty thousand dollars per annum; and besides, some of the retail firms do a business of ten thousand dollars a year in special lines of goods. ”

“ On the other hand, innumerable sales are sacrificed through reliance upon mere assertion of value, or upon discounts or marked-down prices, with a consequent failure to deliver, at the end, a convincing demonstration of value. ”

“ Coöperative selling has been undertaken and found profitable. In some cases, especially in localities frequented by the summer boarder or the automobile tourist, sales are made direct to customers who come to the salesrooms of the organizations or to their special sales ”

“ The necessary theoretical matter is presented by means of illustrations taken from actual experiences of merchants. Reality without minute detail is the spirit of the work. Particular forms of retailing—chain stores, department stores, and so on—are not mentioned in the treatise. Location, organization, accounting, buying, sales, and pricing, the factors whose management means success or failure in any retail establishment, large or small, receive thorough treatment. ”

“ The relative success of salesmen, for example, is not fairly measured in terms of the amounts of their sales, the number of prospects interviewed, or the frequency with which the assigned tasks are accomplished, unless the local trade conditions of the respective territories are fully taken into account. ”

“ Setting out, however, with means enough for these purposes, he is able to make many and large sales; and so to get greater and more numerous increments of profit. Similarly, to get returns in thousands merchants and manufacturers must make their investments in tens of thousands. ”

“ This is accomplished by a species of middlemen or factors, persons possessing some capital, who, whenever the price of any of the articles in which they deal is greatly reduced, purchase it on their own account, in the hopes of selling at a profit when the market is better. These persons, in ordinary times, act as salesmen or agents, and make up assortments of goods at the market price, for the use of the home or foreign dealer. ”

“ The factor often provides a store, together with a complete selling and office force, and every facility for receiving, storing, selling, and shipping the goods, and for financing the business. The salesmen of the house travel throughout the country, reaching all the important markets, and the managers of the different departments, who thus understand the needs of the market, are in a position to advise the mill with intelligence and exactness as to the kind of goods which should be made to meet the requirements of the trade. ”

“ Everywhere, at every case, around every heap of goods were the salesmen and merchants, bending over fabrics, examining their texture, standing off to get the full effect of the figure; the one class praising and overrating, the other undervaluing and quoting prices from other houses. ”

“ The salesmen are trained, tactful, tireless and efficient. They travel from town to town and place to place, visiting every nook and corner where human beings congregate, in order to sell the goods carried by the firm. ”

“ There are certain main selling points which can be selected and should be selected for every line of goods. Some of these selling points will be more effective with one class of customers than with another. Here is where the salesman’s judgment comes into play. Let us take the single example of the white goods business. ”

“ The said salesman shall, subject to the control of the said firm, keep proper books of account, and make due and correct entries of the price of all goods sold, and of all transactions and dealings of and in relation to the said business, and shall serve the said firm diligently and according to his best abilities in all respects. ”

“ When they could not have secured the ready cash they needed upon purely business grounds, firms accommodated through the efforts of a salesman become life customers and a perpetual advertisement for the concern which has helped them, always saying a good word for it whenever possible. ”

“ The classification of retail trades as a group distinct from the Skilled Trades and the Provision Trades is somewhat arbitrary, because under the system of Family Industry, the maker of the goods was often his own salesman, or the middlemen who sold the goods to the consumers were themselves organised into gilds. ”

“ He stocks shelves, decks counters, and employs clerks, packers, salesmen, cash-boys, buyers, and department heads. The man who wants to buy, buys from a man across the sea and yet is served in his own town. ”

“ We are offering some of the stock of the 'Heart Talks' concern upon the market, and in order that the distribution may be as wide as possible, and in order also that we can furnish a living, concrete, flesh-and-blood example of what salesmanship is, or rather what it may be, we're going to give those of you who are the real thing a chance to sell that stock. ”

“ Some salesmen think that selling is like eating—to satisfy an existing appetite; but a good salesman is like a good cook—he can create an appetite when the buyer isn’t hungry. ”

“ Francis of Sales. Everything, says a pious author, in this admirable Saint enchants and fascinates us; whoever reads his writings attentively, feels constrained, not only to honour and venerate him, but also to love him. With him there is a peculiar grace to console, as well as to perfect, the soul. He adapts himself to the capacities of humble minds, whilst no one has more knowledge than he of the most exalted perfection.
The sweet mildness of this Saint sprang from the meekness of which his soul was full. ”

“ So all the works of a soul that is replenished with charity or the virtue of holy love, even the very least, have a most pleasing fragrance before the Divine Majesty, Who rewards them with an increase of charity.—St. Francis of Sales.
If you sincerely love God, you will often speak of Him. As bees gather honey only with their mouths, so your tongue will be always honeyed with the words you speak of your God; and never will your mouth taste such sweetness as when you sing the praises and blessings of His Most Holy Name.—The same. ”

“ A real salesman is one-part talk and nine-parts judgment; and he uses the nine-parts of judgment to tell when to use the one-part of talk. ”

“ He has capital invested also in the raw material which he intends to convert into some article of utility. He works up his raw material; he makes advances for the labour required in working it up. The article is at length ready for the market. The wholesale dealer, who purchases of the manufacturer, sells to a retailer, who is in the habit of buying upon credit, long or short, because the article remains a certain time in his hands before it reaches the consumer, who ultimately pays for it. ”

“ It is true, therefore, of every particular producer or dealer, that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption, of the commodities which he sells at his shop or produces in his manufactory, is important to him. The dealer whose shop is crowded with customers, who can dispose of a product almost the very moment it is completed, makes large profits, while his next neighbour, with an equal capital but fewer customers, gains comparatively little. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a mercantile concern, business is conducted for the purpose of selling merchandise. Profit arises through the purchase of merchandise at one price and its sale at a price sufficiently higher to pay for all operating expenses and leave a margin. ”

“ In such a market every purchase is made with the most thorough acquaintance with the conditions involved. Each dealer, each broker, each speculator, strives to obtain the best knowledge7 of the supply and demand, and the earliest news that may affect it, and each buyer or seller has an equal and a fair opportunity to profit by the resultant effect on the market of all these various agencies. The larger the body of brokers and traders, then, the more accurate the standards of value thus created. ”

“ Industries manufacturing comparatively inexpensive articles for the retail trade, put them up in packages which become well known to customers; and those industries whose goods are sold under brands or trade-marks, or in some other form so that they are familiar to buyers, afford an example of competition of an entirely different kind. ”

“ The general retail merchant is compelled to transact business with a great number of wholesale dealers, to whom he pays cash in hand, or agrees to pay it at some future period, say, in four, six, nine, or twelve months. ”

“ On every article sold there is first of all the profit of the manufacturer, then of the wholesale dealer, and finally of the retailer. There is commonly a fourth, that of the freighter. If you keep a retail store, you must pay the man who makes the goods, the man who transports the goods, and the man who keeps the goods in large stock, and all this leaves you only a small margin of profit. ”

“ Where the number of workmen living on the same spot is large, it may be thought desirable that they should unite together and have an agent, to purchase by wholesale those articles which are most in demand, as tea, sugar, bacon, &c., and to retail them at prices, which will just repay the wholesale cost, together with the expense of the agent who conducts their sale. ”

“ The principal necessaries for the support of a workman and his family are few in number, and are usually purchased by him in small quantities weekly. Upon such quantities, sold by the retail dealer, a large profit is generally made; and if the article is one whose quality, like that of tea, is not readily estimated, then a great additional gain is made by the retail dealer selling an inferior article. ”

“ At the centers of business the great merchants, in touch, by the post and telegraph, with both consumers and producers, study to apportion the supply so that it will reach those who stand most in need of it, and seek to regulate future production so that there may be neither waste nor want when the product is brought to market. ”

“ Those who lived near a town were permitted to sell their products in the market place within the walls on condition that they sold directly to the consumers. They might not dispose of their whole stock to one dealer, for fear that if he had all there was of a commodity he might raise the price above a just one. ”

“ Retail dealers, selling the merchandise of others at prices prevailing at particular localities and times shall hand over to the wholesale dealers as much of the sale proceeds and profit as is realised by them. ”

“ Matilall.-- Ah, a brilliant notion! I am daily in need of money. Does commerce flourish in the bazar, or does it grow in an office? Is it merely the buying and selling that goes on in a sweetmeat-maker's shop? My business will lack all importance unless I am to be the chief agent of some English merchant. ”