Vendor

“ If the vendee obtains possession of goods with the intention by the vendor to transfer both the property and the possession, the property vests in the vendee until the vendor has done some act to dis- affirm the transaction. But if there was never any such inten- tion—if, for instance, the vendor delivers the goods to A.B. under the belief that he is CD.—the property does not vest in the transferee, and the owner may recover the goods even from a bona fide purchaser. ”

“ For the length of more than a quarter of a mile in a direct line, and from side streets innumerable, you are assailed by thousands of vendors, each trying to out-shout or over-scream his or her competitor, “Who’s the buyer?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another set are actually in trade at the moment, if that can be called a trade, which consists of a shop of all sorts; these are called "general dealers," and partake much of the character of the jobbers; only that the latter for a shop, keep a "warehouse," upstairs in a garret; or their lodging room at the public house serves the purpose of a warehouse! I have known one of these, at the same time a dealer in cutlery, coffins, pictures, paper, hose, books, bandanas, and other heterogeneous articles ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the United States, dealers of this class are denominated importing and exporting merchants; or simply, importers and exporters.
2. Such merchants, both here and in Europe, are distinguished from each other by the kind of goods in which they traffic, or by the foreign country in which they have their chief correspondence; thus, one who deals in tobacco is called a tobacco-merchant; a [188] wholesale dealer in wines is called a wine-merchant; a West India, East India, or Turkey merchant, exports goods to, and imports goods from, those respective countries. ”

“ On the contrary, the customers, who are the substantial dependence of a tradesman's shop, are such as are gained and preserved by good usage, good pennyworths, good wares, and good choice; and a shop that has the reputation of these four, like good wine that needs no bush, needs no painting and gilding, no carved works and ornaments; [31] it requires only a diligent master and a faithful servant, and it will never want a trade. ”

“ There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all are the same thing—men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a large basket, a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate between persons; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from land to land with his ships to mediate between nations. ”

“ Such a dealer is very certain, that in a large connexion of trade, he will find some very good judges, who know how to prefer excellence in quality, [Pg 73] and are well acquainted with the perfections required in the article, and perhaps from their situation in life, are enabled to get a much higher, than a common Market-price, for a superior Article: Such a Person will have such goods, in what place soever they can be met with, and knows also that in order to procure them he must give a superior Price. ”

“ Our customers buy from us: his customers trade with him—they enter into harmony with him. Store-keepers and customers sing together like gnats over the oak trees; they make things hum. There is a feeling that whether buying or selling you are getting forward. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. They possess large warehouses in which to make up their orders, or keep in store articles purchased during periods of depression ”

“ I, sir, have none of that pride which sets men above being merchants and dealers; the calling of a merchant is, in my opinion, equally dignified, and no more than equally dignified with that of a farmer, or a manufacturer. ”

“ For a tradesman to open his shop in a place unresorted to, or in a place where his trade is not agreeable, and where it is not expected, it is no wonder if he has no trade. What retail trade would a milliner have among the fishmongers' shops on Fishstreet-hill, or a toyman about Queen-hithe? When a shop is ill chosen, the tradesman starves; he is out of the way, and business will not follow him that runs away from it: suppose a ship-chandler should set up in Holborn, or a block-maker in Whitecross Street, an anchor-smith at Moorgate, or a coachmaker in Redriff, and the like! ”

“ For a mercer to set up now in Paternoster Row, or a woollen-draper in St Paul's Churchyard, the one among the sempstresses, and the other among the chair-makers, would be the same thing as for a country shopkeeper not to set up in or near the market-place. [15]
The place, therefore, is to be prudently chosen by the retailer, when he first begins his business, that he may put himself in the way of business; and then, with God's blessing, and his own care, he may expect his share of trade with his neighbours. ”

“ When a customer enters a shop the proprietor, a grey-headed man perhaps, but conveying by his well-dressed person a profound appearance of old-established honest trading, will slowly and calmly set down his pipe on the polished counter, or push aside his cup of tea, and then inquire politely the nature of his customer's demands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Producer Direct to Consumer.—The simplest form of marketing and the most primitive is the sale by the producer directly to the consumer. The village boy or girl who raises flowers and sells them to passing tourists, the truck gardener near cities who disposes of his vegetables and fruits by sale direct to consumers, either from house to house or at a market-place frequented both by producers and consumers, the dairyman who peddles or delivers milk direct to consumers, are illustrations. ”

“ The business of merchants, in foreign countries, is usually transacted by agents, called factors, or commission merchants, to whom goods are consigned to be sold, and by whom other articles of merchandise are purchased and returned according to order. Sometimes an agent, called a supercargo, accompanies the vessel ”

“ The itinerant crock-man, the root-seller, the glazed table-cover seller, the hawker of spars and worked stone, and even the costermonger of the morning, is the dealer in second-hand articles of the afternoon and evening. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Through Wholesalers and Retailers.—Most products of common use—such as foods, clothing, footwear, house furnishings, lumber, fuel and so on—are marketed through middlemen. The manufacturer of men’s clothing or of shoes usually sells his product to retailers scattered over the country who in turn sell to consumers. Manufactured food products, dry goods and notions, drugs, hardware and house furnishings are generally sold first to wholesalers, who in turn sell to retailers. ”

“ Go into a store for a pair of gloves, even, mention the size you desire, and the salesman will show you every variety in kid, French dogskin, cloth, and leather; for soiree, promenade, driving, travelling, and every species of use, and different styles and kinds for each use. The salesmen understand their business, which is to sell goods; they are polite, they suggest wants, they humor your merest whim in hue, pattern, style, or fancy; they make no rude endeavor to force goods upon you, but are determined you shall have just what you want ”

“ It is the duty of the seller to deliver the goods, and of the buyer to accept and pay for them, in accordance with the terms of the contract of sale. Unless otherwise agreed, delivery of the goods and payment of the price are concurrent conditions, the seller, therefore, must be ready and willing to give possession of the goods to the buyer in exchange for the price, and the buyer must be willing and ready to pay the price in exchange for the possession of the goods. ”

“ This especially respects those people, who deal in heavy goods, as wholesale grocers, salters, brasiers, iron-merchants, wine-merchants, and the like; but does not exclude the dealers in woollen manufactures, and especially in mercery goods of all sorts, the dealers in which generally manage their business in this manner. ”

“ A merchant who has bought wheat or cotton in America, for sale in the Liverpool market, sells immediately an equal quantity for future delivery, at a time when he expects to have his ware ready for sale in England. ”

“ I mention it for this reason, and this makes it to my purpose in an extraordinary manner, that whenever the principal shopkeepers remove from such a street, or settled place, where the principal trade used to be, the rest soon follow—knowing, that if the fame of the trade is not there, the customers will not resort thither: and that a tradesman's business is to follow wherever the trade leads. ”

“ Goods brought into the country by importers, are frequently sold, in succession, to several merchants of different grades, before they come to the hands of the consumers. Cloths or stuffs of different kinds, for instance, may be first sold by the bale to one merchant, who, in turn, may dispose of them by the package to another, and this last may retail them in small quantities to a greater number of customers. ”

“ Besides these, there are second-hand markets, dealers in old clothes, books, and pictures, and others with bundles of ribbons round their bodies or a pile of hats one upon another making known such dealer to a considerable distance. ”

“ In England, or in any other great mercantile country, the bulk of the things which are bought and sold, goes through the hands of a wholesale dealer, and it is he who higgles and bargains with an entire nation of purchasers, by entering into treaty with retail sellers. ”

“ The average merchant in conducting his regular business, when waited upon by one claiming to be an agent of a manufacturer, places his order with that agent fully expecting to receive the goods. As the time rolls on the goods come according to the sample shown and the order given. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This warehouse-keeper, or wholesale-man, sells the goods which he buys of the merchant—I say, he sells them to the retailers, and it is for that reason I place it first there. Now, as they buy in smaller quantities than he did of the merchant, so he deals with more of them in number, and he goes about among them the same Saturday, to get in money that he may pay his merchant, and he receives his bag full of promises, too, every where instead of money, and is put off from week to week, perhaps by fifty shopkeepers in a day ”

“ Good usage, good pennyworths, good wares, and good choice, are doubtless the four cardinal points of business; but a handsome shop also goes a considerable way in attracting customers, and is a principle which no prudent tradesman will despise. ”