Cutting Prices

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Title:     Cutting Prices
Author: Charles N. Crewdson [More Titles by Crewdson]

Is not the salesman on the road who sells goods to one customer at one price and to another at another price, a thief? Is not the house which allows its salesman to do this an accomplice to the crime of theft?

This is a hot shot, I know; but, if you are a salesman, ask yourself if it is right to get the marked price of an article from a friend who gives you his confidence, and then sell the same thing for a lower price to another man who is suspicious and beats you down. Ask yourself, if you have men on the road, whether or not it is right for you to allow your salesman to do these things, and then answer "Yes" or "No." You will all answer "No, but we can't help ourselves."

You can. A friend of mine, who travels for a large house, way down East, that employs one hundred road salesmen, told me recently of an experience directly in point. I will let him tell the story to you:

"It is the custom in our house, you know, for all of the boys to meet together twice each year when we come in after our samples. After we get our samples marked and packed, and are ready for the road, the 'old gentleman' in the house gives us all a banquet. He sits at the head of the table and is toastmaster.

"He is wise in bringing the boys together in this way because he knows that the boys on the road know how things ought to be and that they can give him a great many pointers. He has a stenographer present who takes down every word that is said during the evening. The reports of these semi-annual meetings are the law books of this house.

"At our last meeting the 'old gentleman' when he first arose to speak, said: 'Look here, boys'--he knew how to take us all--'there is one thing about our system of business that I do not like; it is this cutting of prices. Now, what I would like to do this very season--and I have thought of it since you have all packed up your trunks--is to have all samples marked in plain figures and for no man to deviate in any way from the prices. Of course this is rather a bold thing to do in that we have done business in the old way of marking goods in characters for many years, so I wish to hear from you all and see what you think about it. I shall wish as many of you as will to state in words just what you think on this subject, one by one; but first of all, I wish that every man who favors marking samples in plain figures and not varying from the price would stand up, and that those who think the other way would keep their seats.'

"Well, sir, do you know I was the only man out of that whole hundred to stand up. The others sat there. After standing for a moment I sat down, and the 'old gentleman' arose again.

"'Well, the vote is so near unanimous,' said the 'old gentleman,' "that it seems hardly necessary for us to discuss the matter. Yet it is possible that one man may be right and ninety-nine may be wrong, so let us hear from one of our salesmen who differs from his ninety-nine brethren.'

"With this I stood up, and I made a speech something like this: 'Mr. President, and Fellow Salesmen: I am very glad that our worthy President has given me the right to speak. He has said that one man in a hundred may be right even though ninety-nine do not believe as he does. There is no may be about it. I do not think that I am right. I KNOW IT. I speak from experience. When I first started on the road one of my old friends in the house--I was just a stock boy, you know, going out for the first time, not knowing whether I would succeed or fail--this old friend gave me this advice: Said he, "Billy, it is better for you to be abused for selling goods cheaply than to be fired for not selling them at all." With this advice before me from an old salesman in the house, and knowing that all of the salesmen nearly in greater or less degree slaughtered the price of goods, I went out on the road. The first thing I began to do was to cut, cut, cut. Letters came to me from the house to quit it, but I kept on cutting, cutting, cutting. I knew that the other boys in the house did it, and I did not see any reason why I should not. It was my habit to do this: If a man was hard to move in any way and was mean to me I came at him with prices. If he treated me gentlemanly and gave me his confidence, I robbed him--that is, I got the full marked price, while the other fellow bought goods cheaper than this man. Once I got caught up with. Two of my customers met in market and, as merchants usually do when they meet in market, they began to discuss the lines of goods which they carried. They found that they both carried my line, and my good friend learned that the other fellow bought certain lines cheaper than he did.

"'The next time I went around to his town I wore the same old good smile and everything of that kind but I soon saw that he did not take to me as kindly as before. When I asked him to come over to my sample room, he said to me, "No, I will not go over--I shall not buy any more goods from you."

"'"Why, what is the matter?" I asked.

"'"Oh, never mind, I just don't care to handle your line," said he.

"'"Why, aren't the goods all right?" I asked.

"'"Yes, the goods are all right, and since you have pressed the question I wish to tell you that the reason why I don't care to buy any more goods from you is that you have sold goods to other people for less money than you have to me."

"'I could not deny it, and even when I offered to sell him goods at the same price that I had other people he said to me, "No, sir; you can't sell me goods at any price. I don't care to deal with a man who does business that way."

"'This set me to thinking, and I thought about it so hard that I began to see that I was not doing right and, furthermore, that I was not doing what would help me to build up a permanent business. I saw that I was trying to build business by making many merchants think that I was a cut-throat rather than a man in whom they could place confidence. So I believe in marking goods in plain figures and selling to every one for the same price. And, gentlemen, I even changed territories so I could go into a new one and build a business on the square. Whether or not I have prospered, you all know.'

"The old gentleman arose and said: 'Now, what our good friend has just said, strikes me just right, and if I were a salesman I would follow out his ideas; he has convinced me. But what do you other gentlemen think of this? I would like to hear from you.'

"One by one the boys got up, not all of them, but many. Boiled down, the reasons which they gave for not wishing to mark their goods in plain figures, were these:

"First. That ofttimes one of their customer's patrons might wish to make a special order and if he saw the samples marked in plain figures he would find out just how much profit was being made.

"Second. That often they showed goods in a man's store and people who were standing around would see what the wholesale price was.

"Third. That most merchants like to feel that they are buying goods cheaper than any one else.

"After all of these arguments were made, the old gentleman asked me to reply to them. I did so in these words:

"'Now, as to your first argument about special orders. The man on the road should not try or wish to sell one hat or one pair of shoes or one suit of clothes to some special customer who will take half an hour to make his selection. What he should do is to sell a merchant a good bill--and he can sell a whole bill of goods about as quickly as he can sell one special item. If marking my goods in plain figures would do nothing more than keep away from my sample room these special order fiends which hound every merchant in the country, that alone would lead me to do it.'

"When I said this, several of the boys clapped their hands, and I saw that things were coming my way.

"'Now, as to your second argument regarding showing goods in a merchant's store. If there is anything I detest it is to do this, because when you go to show a man your goods you should have his complete attention. This you cannot get when there are customers present or a lot of loafers around the store cutting into what you are doing. I would rather open up in the office of a burning livery stable than have a whole day in a store. What you want to do, gentlemen,' said I, 'is this: Not to carry your samples to your customer's store, but to take your customer to your store--your sample room. There you get his complete attention, without which no one can make a successful sale.'

"Still more of the boys applauded me and I continued:

"'Now, gentlemen, as to the last point. Several of you have said that some merchants wish to think that they buy from you cheaper than other merchants in neighboring towns. They do not wish to think anything of the kind. What they do wish to think is that they are buying them as cheaply as their neighbors do.' Still more of the boys applauded what I said, and one fellow who traveled down in Missouri yelled like a coon hunter.

"'The basis of love, gentlemen,' I persisted, 'is respect. Some of you have had the good sense to marry. To each of these I say: Before the girl who is now your wife found that she loved you, she discovered that you had her respect and admiration.

"'And there is not a single one of you who has a customer that does not have at least a little confidence in you. Confidence is the basis of business.

"'Now, I want to tell you another thing'--I was getting warm then--'It is impossible to tell a lie so that the man to whom you tell it will believe it is the truth. If a man has a lie in his heart, that lie will be felt and spotted by the men he talks to while he affirms with his lips that he speaks the truth. If a merchant asks you if you are selling him goods as cheaply as you sell them to other people, and you tell him "Yes" and you are really not doing so, he will know that you are telling him a lie, and you will lose his confidence and you will lose his business. The one thing to do then, is to treat everybody alike--to sell them all at the same price.

"Now, it is possible for a man to mark his samples in characters and to do a one-price business, but you can bet your life that the stranger will be leery of you if your goods are marked in characters. But if you mark your goods in plain figures and you say to a merchant when you begin to show them to him that your goods are marked in plain figures and that you do not vary from the price, he will believe you and will not try to beat you down. Then you will gain his confidence and he will have more confidence in you, the plain-figure man, than he will in the character-price man from whom he might have been buying for years.

"'Judgment is scarcely a factor in business; even many good merchants are not judges of goods. They are all free to confess this. The best merchant is the best judge of men. These merchants, therefore, must and do depend upon the salesmen from whom they buy their goods. Here, again, is where confidence comes in. This whole thing is confidence, I say. Many a merchant passes up lines of goods that he thinks are better than those he is handling--passes them up because he does not know their superiority and because he does not trust the man who tries to sell them to him.

"'Merchants themselves--many of them--give baits to their customers. They know this game full well, and they do not care for baits themselves. I remember that I once sold a bill of goods in this way: I had sold this customer regularly for five or six years every season. This time he told me that he had bought. He said to me: "The other fellow gave me his price one morning and then he came over to see me in the afternoon and dropped on the price and I bought the goods then because I knew I had him at the bottom."

"'Now, do you suppose I went to making cuts to get even with that other fellow? Not a bit of it. I first showed my old customer that he did not know the values of goods. Then I told him: "Now, you may buy my goods if you like; but you will buy them no cheaper than I have been selling them to you for the last five or six years. Do you suppose that I would come around here to-day and make an open confession that I have been robbing you for all of these years? No, sir; I try to see that my goods are marked right in the beginning and then I treat everybody alike." Although he had turned me down, this man bought my goods and countermanded the order of the other fellow.

"'And, boys--you who have been so dishonest so long'--said I, 'don't know how happy it makes a fellow feel to know that what he is doing is right, and you cannot beat the right. It is good enough. When you know in your own heart that you are honorable in your dealings with your merchant friends, you can walk right square up to them and look them straight in the eye and make them feel that you are treating them right. They will then give you their confidence, and confidence begets business. Therefore, gentlemen, I don't care what any of you are going to do. I, myself, shall mark my goods in plain figures and sell them at the same price to everyone, and I only wish that I worked for a firm that would compel all their salesmen to be honest.'

"With this, the old man arose. I saw that I had him won over, but I heard one of the boys who sat near me whisper, 'Now, watch the old man give it to him.' But he did not. Instead, he said to me: 'This is surely a case where, although there were ninety-nine against him, the one is right. I hereby issue an order to every salesman to mark his goods in plain figures and to sell his goods at the marked price. I wish you, furthermore, to do another thing. On every sample on which I told you you might make a cut, if necessary, I wish you would make that cut on the start. I have always wished to do business as our one-priced friend has suggested but I have never been strong enough to do so. I had always thought myself honest, believing that business expediency made it necessary to give a few people the inside over others; but I am going to make a frank confession to you--I can say that I have not been honest. "'I feel like a certain clothing manufacturer felt for a long time. I was talking with him at luncheon the other day; he is a man who marks his goods in plain figures. If the salesman, by mistake, sold a ten dollar suit for eleven dollars, the goods when shipped out are billed at ten dollars. He is the one, gentlemen, who put this plain-figure idea into my head. One of his salesmen, as we all sat together at the table, asked him: "Mr. Blank, how many years have you been doing the one-price, plain-figure business?"

"'"A little over four years," said he.

"'"And how old are you?" the salesman asked.

"'"Fifty-five," was the answer.

"'"In other words," said he, "you have been a thief for over half a century."

"'"Yes; you're right," said the clothing manufacturer--and this was the only time I ever heard him agree with anybody in my life!

"'His business philosophy was quaintly summed up in the one word PERVERSE. "Give a man what he wants," he said, "and he doesn't want it." "When you find other people going in one direction, go in the other, and you will go in the right one." He saw nearly every one else in the clothing business marking their goods in characters, and, true to his philosophy--"Perverse"--marked his goods in plain figures, and he is succeeding. Now, gentlemen, I am going to do the same thing.

"'And, another thing--I am not going to mark just part of them in plain figures. Do you know, I called on a wholesale dry goods man the other day--the President of the concern. He told me that he marked a part of their manufactured goods in plain figures and the rest in characters. I said to him, "You confess that you are only partly honest; in being only half honest you are dishonest." So, gentlemen, I am going to mark our goods in plain figures, and I want you to sell them to everybody at the same price; if you do not, I will not ship them.

"'Now, I thought I was through, but one more idea has occurred to me. By selling our goods at strictly one price I can figure exactly how much money I am making on a given volume of business. Before, this matter of "cuts" made it a varying, uncertain amount; in future there will be certainty as to the amount of profits. And another thing, so sure as I live, if all of you go out and make the same increase that the one who stood out against all of us has made, our business will thrive so that we can afford to sell goods cheaper still. Until to- night I never knew why it was that he took hold of what seemed to me a big business in his predecessor's territory and doubled it the second year. His success was the triumph of common honesty, and we all shall try his plan, for honesty is right, and nothing beats the right.'

"When the vote was taken the second time, every man at the table stood up."

[The end]
Charles N. Crewdson's short story: Cutting Prices

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