The Retail Merchant

by Rose BuhligNovember 7th, 2023

Too Long; Didn't Read

Exercise 259 Oral You are opening a grocery store. Remember that your object is to sell the largest possible amount of goods. Develop each of the following suggestions: What kind of location would you desire? How would you have the front of your store painted? Would you try to make it stand out from the rest? Do you think it would pay you to have the interior newly and brightly redecorated? To put in the best and brightest lights? What quality of stock would you select? The same for all neighborhoods? Give your reasons. Would advertised brands bring you more trade? Do you think window display would pay? Would you recommend freak or ordinary displays? Price-marked or non-price-marked? Give your reasons. Does the delivery wagon pay? Would it be advisable to buy a new wagon and a good horse? What other considerations would enter? Would you sometimes cut the price of some necessity to draw people? Give reasons for your answer. Is it a good thing to have a general cut-price-sale to bring customers to your store? Even if you lose money by it? Would you give credit? Would the class of people you served come into consideration? Is the use of trading stamps and premiums good policy? Why do you often find a meat market in connection with a grocery? There are two kinds of retail meat markets: (1) the one that sells goods which can be retailed at a low price, and (2) the one that sells superior goods at a higher price. Which policy would you follow and why? Could a retailer combine the two spoken of in (12)? Consider cost, space, satisfaction of the customer. Would you advertise by means of handbills? By circular letters? What would you do if another grocery opened across the street from yours?

Business English: A Practice Book by Rose Buhlig is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. The Retail Merchant

I.—The Retail Merchant

Exercise 259

Oral

You are opening a grocery store. Remember that your object is to sell the largest possible amount of goods. Develop each of the following suggestions:

What kind of location would you desire?
How would you have the front of your store painted? Would you try to make it stand out from the rest?
Do you think it would pay you to have the interior newly and brightly redecorated? To put in the best and brightest lights?
What quality of stock would you select? The same for all neighborhoods? Give your reasons. Would advertised brands bring you more trade?
Do you think window display would pay? Would you recommend freak or ordinary displays? Price-marked or non-price-marked? Give your reasons.
Does the delivery wagon pay? Would it be advisable to buy a new wagon and a good horse? What other considerations would enter?
Would you sometimes cut the price of some necessity to draw people? Give reasons for your answer.
Is it a good thing to have a general cut-price-sale to bring customers to your store? Even if you lose money by it?
Would you give credit? Would the class of people you served come into consideration?
Is the use of trading stamps and premiums good policy?
Why do you often find a meat market in connection with a grocery?
There are two kinds of retail meat markets: (1) the one that sells goods which can be retailed at a low price, and (2) the one that sells superior goods at a higher price. Which policy would you follow and why?
Could a retailer combine the two spoken of in (12)? Consider cost, space, satisfaction of the customer.
Would you advertise by means of handbills? By circular letters?
What would you do if another grocery opened across the street from yours?

Exercise 260

Written

You have bought Burton & Sanders' grocery at Fort Wayne, Indiana. Send out a circular letter advertising the new White Front Grocery and telling what the policy of the new management will be. Explain that the opening sale will begin next Monday and that a special feature of the sale will, be twenty pounds of granulated sugar for eighty cents with a two dollar order.
At the same time have an article appear in a local newspaper, telling that Burton & Sanders have sold their store to you and that you are making extensive improvements, especially in sanitary means of handling provisions. In addition, let the article give an account of your business career in another town. Would such an article be of value to you? Write it.
Write to Peabody, Harper & Co., Rush Street Bridge, Chicago, Ill., saying that you would like to open an account with them. Give as references a bank in your town and one in Logansport, where you used to live. Ask Peabody, Harper & Co. what terms they can offer you.
You have decided to advertise in a local paper. Write to the advertising manager, asking him for yearly rates for a half-column every evening and a quarter-page every Friday.
Find out what are the advertising rates of a paper in your town and answer (4).
Reproduce a letter that a woman living in town sends, ordering two dollars' worth of groceries and requesting that you send, in addition, the twenty pounds of sugar you advertise in (1). She encloses a check for $2.80.
You are in receipt of a letter from Peabody, Harper & Co., answering your inquiry in (3) and offering you sixty days' credit and 2% discount for payment within ten days. Write the letter.
Send an order to Peabody, Harper & Co. for $200 worth of groceries. Among the items let there be 6 cases of canned tomatoes, first quality, at $1.75 a case. Ask them to send the goods by the Pennsylvania R. R.
Your business is increasing and you need another clerk, (a) Write an advertisement for one. (b) Apply for the position.
Write a short circular advertising an inexpensive novelty that a grocer might sell. These circulars are to be wrapped with purchases.
Peabody, Harper & Co. write, confirming your order in (8) and enclosing a straight bill of lading.
When the goods arrive, you find no tomatoes among them. Write a complaint to the wholesale house.
Peabody, Harper & Co. reply to your letter in (12), apologizing for the mistake, explaining how it occurred (supply an explanation), and telling you that they have sent one case by express at their expense. The rest will follow by freight.
The tomatoes sent by freight do not arrive. Write to the grocery company, asking the latter to send out a "tracer"; that is, to request the railroad company to trace the goods on its lines.
The grocery company telephones the railroad company, requesting the latter to trace the goods and to report. The grocery company also writes a letter confirming its request. Write the letter.
(a) The railroad company reports that by mistake the goods were carried through to Lima, but that they are being returned to Fort Wayne. (b) The grocery company informs you of the developments and hopes that the delay has caused you no great inconvenience. Write both letters.

Exercise 261

You wish to get a partner to open a meat market in connection with your grocery. Write to a friend in Lafayette, Ind., who you think will be interested, proposing the plan. Tell him of the opportunities, as you see them, of business in Fort Wayne and the surrounding country. Tell him that with $4,000 additional capital you and he could set up a much larger establishment, invest in a motor wagon, and thus secure the trade of the outlying districts.
Your friend replies that the proposal appeals strongly to him, but that he has only $2,000 in cash. However, he holds a mortgage for $2,000 on —— (state the location of the house) in Lafayette, and, if he can sell the mortgage, he will be glad to avail himself of the offer.
After the partnership is formed, your partner writes to Orr & Locket, 14 W. Randolph St., Chicago, Ill., ordering the following to be shipped by Pennsylvania R.R.: 1 Refrigerator No. 361; 2 Meat Blocks No. 3; 1 Scale No. M. 30; 1/6 doz. Saws No. 33 (16 in.); 1/6 doz. Saws No. 33 (22 in.); 1/4 doz. Knives No. 955; 1/4 doz. Knives No. 490; 1/6 doz. Steels No. 82; 1/6 doz. Cleavers No. 09; 1/4 doz. Block Scrapers. He explains that he is the same man who formerly had a meat market in Lafayette.
Orr & Locket acknowledge the receipt of the order, enclose the invoice, and offer him 5% discount for payment within 30 days. Write the letter.
A Detroit manufacturer sends you f.o.b. prices on his motor wagons. Investigate the prices and write the letter.
Order one of them. (Remember the f.o.b. item.)
He writes confirming your order, saying that the car is now in the shipper's hands and that his bank has sent the order bill of lading with draft attached to the First National Bank of your city. Write the letter. (See page 344.)
At the same time the shipper's bank sends a letter to the First National Bank of your city enclosing the order bill of lading with draft drawn on you for collection. A copy of this letter is also mailed to you. Write it.
You telephone your bank to draw on your account for the amount of the draft and to send you the bill of lading. You confirm this understanding by a letter. Write it.
Your bank writes, confirming the telephone conversation and enclosing the bill of lading and a receipt for the correct amount. You present your bill of lading, pay the freight charges, and get your motor wagon. Write the letter the bank sends.
The automobile manufacturer has meanwhile received through his bank a credit for the amount you paid for the car and writes acknowledging its receipt. Write the letter.

Exercise 262

Choose four or six members of the class, one-half of whom are to argue in favor of the policy indicated in the plan outlined below and one-half of whom are to argue against it.

A certain grocer opened a store with the determination of doing a strictly cash business, and of making no deliveries unless the purchaser paid for the delivery. This was his plan as suggested by System:

To those who would carry their own purchases he sold everything for cash much lower than any other grocer in town sold it.
If the customer bought very bulky goods, or if he did not wish to be his own delivery man, the grocer charged him for delivery a certain percentage of the total of his cash purchases. Yet the customer bought more cheaply than he could buy in any other grocery in town.
Those who wished to pay once a month instead of at every visit he advised to deposit a certain sum of money with him as banker and to buy against that, paying cash prices and receiving 3% interest on the amount left on deposit.

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