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Show Local Penney Store Joins in 56th Birthday Celebration This Month While each store adapts itself to the needs of the community com-munity it serves, the central office in New York is geared to provide whatever a Penney store needs. There is a staff of nearly 250 buyers each an expert in his field who knows his product from the raw fiber stage, through the designing right down to the complicated processes of manufacture of the finished product. Penney merchandise comes from all markets of the world. Wherever good merchandise is found Penney buyers are there too In addition to a staff of approximately 250 buyers m New York, the company has regional buying offices on the West Coast (Los Angeles) and in the South (Dallas) and- in Europe. Penney buyers purchase for nearly 1,700 stores, which costs less, per unit, than buying for a single store or small group. This represents another economy econ-omy which the Penney Company Com-pany is able to pass on to its customers. "Bargain - hunting shoppers will have a field day at Pen-ney's Pen-ney's gala 56th anniversary celebration opening April 10," announces Wilbur Snelson, Penney Pen-ney store manager. "Penney's more than 250 buyers have scoured markets both here and abroad to get us quality merchandise mer-chandise at good "old-fashioned prices." He continued: "Our buyers have done a tremendous job of finding real value merchandise mer-chandise at bargain prices. And they've done this without departing de-parting from the ' company's 'Always First Quality' .standards. .stan-dards. We don't sell seconds, irregulars or other substandard merchandise at any time. "We're getting a big charge out of the celebration. The bargains are our anniversary gift to loyal customers." Penney stores from coast to coast in every state in the Union Un-ion together form the largest chain of retail department stores in the world. In 1902, James Cash Penney opened a cash-and-carry store in a little frame building in the frontier coal mining town of Kemerer, Wyo. He invested his entire savings $500 plus $1500 he borrowed to buy a one-third interest in the 25 by 40 foot store. Population of Kemerer was 1,000. Mr. Penney Pen-ney had rejected an opportunity to manage a store in Ogden, Utah, a "metropolis" of 35,000, because he understood smalltown small-town folks; knew their needs and how to serve them; sympathized symp-athized with their desire to "live simply, but well." He permitted no charge accounts ac-counts or time payments, made no deliveries of merchandise and eliminated other unneces-' unneces-' sary costs of operation. Quick turnover of merchandise for cash gave him a continuous flow of working capital to buy new merchandise. Mrs. Penney's first customers soon learned they benefited from this idea values at the "Golden Rule" were better, prices were lower. In the first year in that little store, home-makers home-makers bought $28,898.11 in merchandise a remarkable amount for a store of that size at that time. |