Supermarket

“ CHAIN STORES.--The principle of selling great quantities of food at a comparatively small profit on each item is put into practice in chain stores, which are operated by different companies throughout the United States. Such stores are a boon to the housewife who must practice economy, for they eliminate a middleman by acting both as wholesaler and as retailer. Because of this fact, foods that are purchased in large quantities from the producer or manufacturer can be offered to the consumer at a lower price than in a retail store not a part of a chain. ”

“ And we are aiming to bring about direct connection between producer and consumer—farmer and housewife.”
“But what of that wagon,” inquired Claire, indicated a huge delivery wagon bearing the name of a prominent down-town department store, “does that firm sell fresh food?”
“No; staple groceries which they can buy in huge quantities, like five pounds of granulated sugar at twenty-three cents, when your grocer and mine are charging us at the rate of three and one-half pounds for eighteen cents. This firm delivers orders. The farmers, the hucksters and stand men can not. ”

“ There she turned into a shop, which I knew was a grocer's when I saw some soap boxes on the pavement, and a swinging sign with a big T and a teapot on it, so that the lettered might read and the unlettered might see what was sold within. A grocer's shop is like a salmon basket, having only one way out. Not like a public-house, whose ways in and out are many and crooked. ”

“ The list on the other side of the store-keeper’s books would be as long, for it included all the export products of the country, and some wares which were sent to market in the large towns or in other States. The merchant must always be prepared to receive in pay for his goods “Grain of all kinds, beef, pork, poultry, cheese, butter, eggs, nuts, berries, hides, tallow, candles, lard, domestic flannels, feathers, quills, braided straw hats, potatoes, apples and other fruits, both green and dried, home-made brooms, flax and flax seed, cider and domestic wines, etc.” ”

“ Dealers in a small way, in cities and large towns, are frequently denominated shop-keepers; but those who do an extensive retail business, are usually called merchants or grocers, according as they deal in dry goods or groceries. In cities, the extensive [189] demand for goods enables retailers to confine their attention to particular classes of articles; such as groceries, hardware, crockery, a few kinds of dry goods, or some articles of domestic manufacture; but in other places, where trade is more limited, the merchant is obliged to keep a more general assortment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ THE MODERN GROCER. Nor has the enterprising retail grocer of to-day failed to catch the spirit of this progress and keep even step with it. He has become the Popular Food Provider, and his store represents about everything which is palatable in either hemisphere or any zone. As the world has grown enlightened and refined, his stock has become more and more varied and better adapted to the wants of mankind, until it embraces every delicacy of the land, sea or air. ”

“ Buy only small quantities of perishable things [Pg 16] such as green vegetables, fruit, fish, eggs, cream, and fresh butter; buy dry groceries and preserved stores in quantities large enough to entitle you to wholesale prices; and pay cash in order to avail yourself of the lowest market price. Make your purchases as early in the day as possible in order to secure a choice of fresh articles; and trade with respectable dealers who give full weight and honest measure. ”

“ The Grocery Supply Company is one of them. I buy barrels of sugar, barrels of flour, big boxes of prunes, and so on, from this company. Then I sell a few pounds of sugar, flour or prunes [145] at a time and make a little money each time I sell. You see I don't pay as much for the flour and sugar as I sell it for. The difference in price comes to me, and is what I live on, and sometimes it's little enough. ”

“ The chain-store men are organized in the National Chain Store Grocers Association, having thirty members, representing 12,000 stores, operating in eighteen states. It is estimated that there are fifty responsible chain-store grocery organizations in the United States, representing about 30,000 stores. The chain-store grocer turns his stock over from twelve to twenty-five times a year, sells for cash, makes no deliveries, and claims to save the consumer an average of fifteen percent in buying. ”

“ We do everything we can to popularize this store, not only with the stockholders, but with the general public. You see, we have both a dry and green grocery department, a meat and a fish department. On Saturdays we have a special sale, known as the ‘no rebate and no delivery sale,’ which runs from five to ten P. M. This is so popular as a matter of economy with Montclair people that we have great crowds during those hours, many customers arriving at four-thirty and waiting the half hour till specials are on sale. ”

“ In retail trade, however, the economic gain is less universal. Since retail commodities are chiefly for use in the home, and homes are widely distributed, the convenience of being near one's customers and away from trade competitors is often a predominating motive. Shops which sell bread, meat, fish, fruit, groceries, articles which are bought frequently and mostly in small quantities, shops selling cheaper articles of ordinary consumption, such as tobacco, millinery, stationery, and generally shops selling articles for domestic use, the purchase of which falls to women, are widely dispersed. ”

“ Some were obliged to trade off and sell their clothes for food; others had to open small retail groceries to keep themselves and their neighbors from starving. The more independent in circumstances were obliged to mortgage their horses and carts for provisions and fodder; and all had, as far as their means went, to patronize the new store opened by the contractors, who retailed provisions and groceries, to those who had any thing to lose, at a profit of one hundred and a quarter per cent. ”

“ Guide for Shoppers.—A department store in New York recently made a census of its customers, and from the count kept for a single week it was estimated that 3,125,000 persons passed through its doors every year. This for a single store. But there are thousands of stores. Vast numbers of these people are from the country, and do not know where they can trade to the best advantage. What a field is here for a shoppers’ guide! Ascertain what stores make a specialty of certain goods, what ones sell the cheapest in certain lines, and what days they make bargains in certain wares. ”

“ He nodded pleasantly to the two delivery drivers loading their wagons for the first trip of the morning, and cast upward the inevitable, complacent glance at the sign that ran across the front of the building--CHILDS' CASH STORE. The lettering, not too large, was of dignified black and gold, suggestive of noble spices, aristocratic condiments, and everything of the best (which was no more than to be expected of a scale of prices ten per cent. higher than any other grocery in town) . ”

“ The holds are fitted up like shops, with desk and counter; the stores supply all the wants of a primitive people—dry-goods, clothes and caps, saddlery, wool-carders, querns of basalt, and spinning-wheels; sugar, grain, tobacco, and, especially, the rye-spirits, with which all purchasers, male and female, are copiously drenched. These, and a multitude of notions, are exchanged for wool and eider-down, dried-meat, salt-fish, and a few fox-skins. ”

“ I stood behind the counter with a pen over my ear, was polite to the ladies, and was wonderfully active in waiting upon customers. We kept a cash, credit and barter store, and I drove some sharp bargains with women who brought butter, eggs, beeswax and feathers to exchange for dry goods, and with men who wanted to trade oats, corn, buckwheat, axe-helves, hats, and other commodities for tenpenny nails, molasses, or New England rum. ”

“ They are driven in from the country in flocks, so that customers may make selections as they pass through the streets. Everything else is peddled, not only food in the form of fruits, meats, cakes, bread, vegetables, fish, butter and cheese, but all sorts of dry goods and notions, shoes, stockings and even hats, tinware, hardware, stationery; sometimes on a tray suspended from the neck of a man, sometimes on a cart, but oftener upon the back of a donkey. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I voiced a thought.
"There must be an awful lot of old timers died this spring. You can't cut them off short and hope to save them."
Bill grunted.
We entered the store. It smelled good, as such stores always do—soap, leather, ground coffee, bacon, cheese—all sorts of things. On the right ran a counter and shelves of dry goods and clothing; on the left groceries, cigars, and provisions generally. Down the middle saddles, ropes, spurs, pack outfits, harness, hardware. ”

“ The lines used to connect all dealers from the producer to the consumer represent transportation or delivery, and the increase in cost due to overhead expense and profit is indicated by the black spaces, which increase in size as the number of dealers increase. The producer may be the manufacturer, but in most cases he is the farmer, the stockman, the dairyman, or the fruit grower. The dealers handling the food between the producer and the consumer are known as middlemen. They include the wholesaler, the jobber, and the retailer. The retailer is the grocer, the butcher, or the green grocer. ”

“ All who grew or made [125] more things than they could use brought them to the grocer to be sold. So the grocer helped them and they helped him, and the people went to the store for their supplies.
“You must remember, children,” went on Mr. Duwell, “the old-fashioned country store was very different from Parker’s grocery around the corner. Besides groceries, it sold harness, horse blankets, hardware, shoes, and everything people needed.”
II. The Modern Grocer
“Suppose Wallace were a grocer, Ruth, how would you like his store to be kept?” asked her mother. ”

“ To those of us who are in the business, the argument against package goods as increasing the cost of living is absurd. Goods must be prepared for delivery, either in the factory or in the store. The factory, with its labor-saving machinery, can do up dry groceries more rapidly and less expensively than our fastest clerks in the store. Perhaps there was a time when the housekeeper paid extra for containers. To-day she can buy certain package goods as reasonably, and sometimes more cheaply, than bulk goods. ”

“ In our time, small shops are swallowed up in magnificent warehouses, in which every article of dress especially can be purchased under one roof—from a penny yard of ribbon to a hundred-guinea shawl. In splendour these bazaars, with one proprietor, rival the oriental with many competitors. But their distinguishing characteristic is the far-seeing organization, by which the capital is turned over with unexampled rapidity, and no unsaleable stock is kept on hand. ”

“ The abilit of the chain stores to make large quantity purchases; to pay cash and thus obtain the advantage of discounts; skill in buying so as to avoid either overstocking or understocking; warehousing in, and distribution from, a single warehouse for numerous stores; large capital with the advantages flowing therefrom; certain pricing and sales policies resulting in slightly lower prices on the part of the chain stores as compared with single stores; more rapid turnover of goods; cheaper and better advertising; superior management ”

“ 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. ”