Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

.RADIO BROADCAST. IN MERCHANDISING Looking to 1935 the Jobber Will Change at Heart From a Buyer to a Seller, and This Change Is Being Reflected in the Changes Made by Up-to-Date Retailers, too. A New Highly Efficient Merchandising Set-Up Will Be Established ten. On the one hand you have a group of buyers whose job it is to buy as cheaply as possible. On the other, you have a group of men on the territory, who, all too frequently, run their territories as they choose and make prices as they choose, subject only to certain get mini- mums. Each man sells what he feels like pushing. As one of these so-called sales managers said recently, rather bitterly: " If we'd only realize it, all of us on the inside arc just meni- als doing detail work for the salesmen." I have met hundreds of jobbers in various lines, but I cannot recall a single one who is taking as much personal in- terest in the business of selling as he does in buying. As I recall them each man stands out first of all as a buyer. The head of the house talks and thinks "buying right." But when he thinks of "buying right," he isn't putting his buying thought in tune with selling. There is a reason for that. Over a period of years, the manufacturer has become more and more the brand builder. The jobber has become the man who hands out what the dealer has call for. He has looked upon himself less and less as a brand builder. His primary thought has been to get demandable merchandise and get it at a minimum price. It has become a deep-rooted habit. Many of the present-day jobbers have had no opportunity to think along other lines. As jobbers they are first of all buyers—and good, close buy- ers—and they have trained their young men in this way. And the individual retailer, who has learned what he knows about merchandising largely from the jobber, has followed in the same channel. The Chain Store Enters Now we have the chain stores. It does not require much study to convince one that the great difference between the chain store and the jobber-retailer lies in the fact that the former is not only an expert buying organization but par- ticularly an expert selling organization. This, in brief, is the result of the study which Klein made in a general tour of the country. But his study demonstrated one more fact—there are enough jobbers who have come to realize that they must make selling a fifty-fifty partner in their business to make it seem worth while for the manufac- turer to give them a chance. What the future of the jobbing industry is apt to be and what the future of the jobber as we have known him is going to be are now quite well defined. He has taken a definite position in the industry of distributing and even the'casual observer can detect this position with accuracy. There is no longer any more guess work. The jobbing industry will continue, it will continue as a definite factor, and it will soon commence to do a larger percentage of the gross business than it is now doing. I feeJ that one is safe in saying that jobbing, as a business, is now at the lowest ebb in which it will find itself in the present- day merchandising cycle. The old-school jobber is winding up rapidly and definitely. And it is not so much the chain-store method of distribution that is winding him up but rather the new school of jobber. The old-school jobber —the jobber as we have known him during the last twenty-five years, ever since, in fact, he ceased to be a brand builder—that type of jobber who put his mind upon buying and made buying his fetish with selling just a mere detail —is giving way rapidly. Taking his place is the new school of jobber who is as much concerned with the selling end of his business as he is with buying. This new jobber is already with us. It is not his own selling which concerns him so much as it is the proper mer- chandising of his lines so that his retail outlets can in turn sell what they buy. A Sales Lesson From A Golfer One of the really good golfers in the country told me once that he always plays over in bed, the night before, the match which he is scheduled to play the next day. Before retiring for the night before his match, he walks slowly and thoughtfully over the course, getting a mental picture of each hole. Then in bed that night he works out his game. The next day he plays it that way, regardless of what his opponent is doing. It might be equally sound for many a sales manager to plan his selling five years from now in the same way. So, just as the golfer looks over his course in advance, let's look over the jobbing situation in 1935. Let us take the present trends and indications and extend the line ahead five years. Here is the jobber of 1935! The most advanced jobbers are going to be the drug job- bers. The next most advanced group will be the grocery job- bers. Then will come the hardware jobbers. And then the dry goods jobbers. There will be outstanding jobbers who will stand out in front of their groups, but as groups the fore- going seems reasonable, based on where they stand at present. And their present position is due to the pressure which chain stores have thus far brought to bear. In 1935 the old-style jobber sales force will be quite thor- oughly out of the picture. That is going to be so because retailers will not have to be talked into what to order. The great mass of worth-while dealers will be grouped with one jobber or another. The jobber will have closely knit working arrangements with a given number of retailers—based on an economical minimum. But whether there be 250 or 500 or more retailers aligned with a given jobber, those retailers will work as a group— as a body. As nearly as practical, the retailers will be (Concluded on page 122) • DECEMBF. R 1929 79