Wholesaler

“ We do not mean to imply that a wholesaler's course of business based on anticipation of needs of specific customers, rather than on prior orders or contracts, might not at times be sufficient to establish that practical continuity in transit necessary to keep a movement of goods 'in commerce' within the meaning of the Act. ”

“ Wholesale has reference to the quantity the dealer sells, and not to the source from which he buys, or the person to whom he sells. The wholesaler, as a rule, deals in staples—that is, goods which are used season after season—though of course there are wholesalers in practically all businesses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If justice is to be done, all these questions, and many more like them, must be answered, even thought it is beyond the power of the human intellect to do so. Of course, the difficulties enumerated are passed along the line. The manufacturer has to meet it; the wholesaler, in turn, is governed by what the manufacture has to guess at, before the retailer has his turn. ”

“ The wholesaler aims to keep a stock on hand sufficiently large to cover all calls upon him, and does what he can to push the good thing along, through his salesmen and the circular literature which he sends out from time to time. ”

“ Likewise there is a lot of middle men and drummers, the buyers at the producer's end, the wholesalers or middle men at the consumer's end, with speculator and landowner at both ends. All of these have to be supported by the system, and the dear consumer pays for it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The manufacturer supplies the wholesale dealer; the wholesale dealer provides the retail tradesman; and the retail tradesman carries on his business with his customers upon the sure foundation of credit. Not a coin is seen in the hands of either party from one year’s end to the other; and a man’s wealth is known not by the mere exchangeable property he possesses, but by the extent of the credit he is allowed. Political economy is a wonderful science, sir; and the ancients were entirely ignorant of its true principles. ”

“ Small orders require just as much trouble in their execution as large ones; and a wholesale business is, in all respects, more satisfactory than one in which private customers are supplied, as well as the trade. ”

“ Buying at wholesale collectively, to sell to themselves individually; they would be in a financial condition to pay remunerative prices, for whatever was genuine, pure, wholesome, good, reliable and lasting. ”

“ Manufacturer: It looks so to me. That gold-standard fight taught me that you could trust the American people to make a wise decision, if you would only have a country store, schoolhouse, cornfield debate, in which every man in the country got into the game—preacher, lawyer, teacher, farmer, merchant, manufacturer, laboringman, townfolks and country folks, all alike.
Mr. Merchant: Nothing more true has been said since we have been talking about this question than that remark about the importance of a public discussion of this whole matter. ”

“ If the store is his own, he can make sure that his goods are represented by a full line, he can dictate the price at which they shall be sold and the service that shall be given. Retailers have used coöperative methods in order to make their relations with production more direct, through buying clubs organized to accomplish specific purchases, through buying organizations of a permanent character which rival jobbing houses, through capital-ownership in wholesale houses, and in a few cases through manufacturing institutions. ”

“ In early English law caveat emptor was the general rule, and it was one well suited to primitive times. Men either bought their goods in the open market-place, or from their neighbours, and buyer and seller contracted on a footing of equality. Now the complexity of modern commerce, the division of labour and the increase of technical skill, have altogether altered the state of affairs. The buyer is more and more driven to rely on the honesty, skill and judgment of the seller or manufacturer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whether they be wholesale dealers, who collect into large masses the commodities of various producers; or whether they be retailers, who divide out to those who want them, the masses of commodities thus collected together; all mercantile men are agents of transfer from the places where things are produced to the places where they are consumed. Thus the distributing apparatus of a society, answers to the distributing 407 apparatus of a living body; not only in its functions, but in its intermediate origin and subsequent position, and in the time of its appearance. ”

“ The ideal is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen’s and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. ”

“ Of course, in all exchange of commodities between two countries, besides that supply of the respective wants of each which constitutes the foundation or sustaining element of the commerce, a certain portion of what the consumer pays must fall to the share of the persons by whose agency the commerce is carried on. It is this that properly forms the profits of the commerce, as distinguished from its mere advantages or conveniences. ”

“ But, then, as what is thus wanted by every particular person, or family, is but in small quantities, and they would not be able to send for it to the country or town where it is to be bought, there are shopkeepers in every village, or at least in every considerable market-town, where the particulars are to be bought, and who find it worth their while to furnish themselves with quantities of all the particular goods, be they made where and as far off as they will; and at these shops the people who want them are easily supplied. ”

“ The relation between the retail organizations and the American Wholesale Co-operative is the same as the relation between the consumers and the retail stores. A wholesale profit is made and declared in the same manner to the stores, as the stores declare their dividends to the consumers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All wholesale trade, all buying in order to sell again by wholesale, may be reduced to three different sorts: the home trade, the foreign trade of consumption, and the carrying trade. The home trade is employed in purchasing in one part of the same country, and selling in another, the produce of the industry of that country. It comprehends both the inland and the coasting trade. ”

“ This is no more than an expansion of its simplest signification, that of an exchange of goods, the bringing of them from the seller to the buyer, however vast the range now comprehended by the term in the progress of society. ”

“ Now, when one country buys from another wholesale, to sell again in retail, or buys in retail, to sell again in the lump, if we trace the transaction to its ultimate results, we shall always find that commerce resolves itself into barter, products for products, services for services. ”

“ Wholesale commerce, which henceforward became international, involved the power of taking long views, quickness in grasping a situation, general aptitude, and, in fact, qualities of mind and character which [Pg 60] are not given to all. ”

“ This is the constant multiplication of intervening agents—middle-men, factors, brokers, speculators, contractors, and distributors of every sort—between the producer and the consumer, or between the primary owner and the ultimate owner of almost everything which is the subject of ownership and trade. Those two, who are the actual persons brought chiefly into relationship by the thing in question, are put quite out of sight of one another in most of the transactions of modern industry and commerce ”

“ The merchant who relieved the monotony of a large and profitable wholesale business by treating him as a son, impressed upon him at an early age the necessity of making the family history illustrious by soaring beyond commerce to professional distinction and a fixed income. ”

“ But a duty laid upon an article which may be produced here stimulates the skill and industry of our own country to produce the same article, which is brought into the market in competition with the foreign article, and the importer is thus compelled to reduce his price to that at which the domestic article can be sold, thereby throwing a part of the duty upon the producer of the foreign article. ”

“ The mercantile part of the world, therefore, wisely use of the term EMPLOYING HANDS, and justly prefer each other as they employ more or fewer; for thus one merchant says he is greater than another because he employs more hands. And now indeed the merchant should seem to challenge some character of greatness, did we not necessarily come to a second division, viz., of those who employ hands for the use of the community in which they live, and of those who employ hands merely for their own use, without any regard to the benefit of society. ”

“ The point of greatest interest in this is the fact that combinations among this first class of middlemen are fostered and made possible by the combination of producers. Nor does the series end here necessarily. The increased price which the retail dealers are obliged to pay for the goods, with the fact that others are making larger profits, makes them eager to do the same; and by the aid and co-operation of the wholesale merchants they may be able to do much toward checking competition among themselves and increasing their profits. ”

“ The more perfect the power of association the greater must be the power to maintain commerce, for every act of association is an act of commerce, as it is proposed now to show, beginning at the beginning, in the family, which long precedes the nation. Doing so, we find the husband exchanging his services in the raising of food and the materials of clothing, for those of his wife, employed in the preparation of food for the table, and the conversion of raw materials into clothing,—and here it is we find the greatest of all trades. ”

“ It is only people of a certain class, able to pay ready money and willing to go great distances to purchase, who frequent these large establishments. Those who live from hand to mouth, and those who prefer to buy at adjacent places, will maintain a certain proportion of shops, and the wholesale distributing organization needed for them. ”

“ Inasmuch as all material wealth was created by labor, and distributed by being bought and sold, it followed as a logical sequence, that there was but one way by which every useful worker could secure a just share in the distribution, and that was to take charge of the business of exchange (buying and selling) and divide the benefits equally among all who united their efforts to establish the largest possible round of exchange between producers and consumers. ”

“ The company were to be enabled to purchase lands, &c., and to exercise all the usual powers of bodies corporate; but were not to trade in the buying or selling of any goods or merchandise, except that they might deal in bills of exchange, and in buying and selling of bullion, gold, or silver, and in selling of any goods or merchandise which should be pledged to them for money lent thereon, and might also sell the produce of their own lands. ”

“ As, on the other hand, a merchant may export the manufactures of his own country to his own loss and the nation’s gain. But if the merchants be gainers, the consumers, that is those for whose use manufactures are established, having a power of purchasing or not at pleasure, must be so too. ”

“ The citizens or subjects of each of the High Contracting Parties may trade in any part of the territories of the other by wholesale or retail in all kinds of produce, manufactures, and merchandise of lawful commerce, either in person or by agents, singly or in partnership with foreigners or native citizens or subjects ”

“ Every one of these departments is conducted in competition with the most efficient concerns in their respective lines in Great Britain. The Coöperative Wholesale Society makes its purchases, and manufactures its products, in order to supply the 1399 local distributive, coöperative societies scattered over all England; but each local society is at liberty to buy from the wholesale society, or not, as it chooses; and they buy only if the Coöperative Wholesale sells at market prices. ”