OCR Text |
Show - - - - t THE STOREKEEPERS . . { Those of us who are past middle age can remember remembert rememberwhen rememberwhen t when the kindly neighbor whose job it was to sell sen us thenecessities the thenecessIties thenecessities necessIties of life Hfe was known as a storekeeper . ThEname Thename ThE ' . . name was quite appropriate . He bought a stockof stock ofgoods of ofgoods : . goods , hung out his sign , sometimes , and waited for hisneighbors his hisneig hisneighbors neighbors neig bors and fliends friends to drop in and buy'It buy . - ' _ ' inherited the business bus if it had hadnot hadnot -'It 'It It 'F F : Later on , his son mess , . ; not gone to the wall waU , adopted a slightly more aggressive aggressiveattitude J a , Jattitude aattitude attitude toward the securing of trade , and called calIed himselfa himselff himself /f f / * . - - a merchant . . Here and there a venturesome soul began to toreally \ ' really study business methods and actually actual1y plan for forgreater , . " ' greater volume and a wider trade radius . Some became becamereal becamereal becamereal real business men and reaped rich rewards . - : - ; Later still stilI , the department store and mail order orderhouse orderhouse orderhouse house came carne into existence , recently foIl followed owed by the chainstores chain chainstores - stores , which now seem to menace the small smaH merchant merchantand , and even threaten to drive dlive him out of business . . In spite of these revolutionary developments , however how how- however however - ever , thousands of independent merchants are making makingmoney makingmoney makingmoney money today . They aie ale are doing it through adoptingscientific adopting adoptingscientifIc adoptingscientific scientifIc methods of buying and selling , through the theemployment theemployment theemployment employment of systematic accounting , througha through a study studyof studyof studyof of their customers ' requhements requirementst requirementstand , , ! and throughadver through adver adver- advertising advertising advertising - - tising . But a great many scorn suchnewfangled such new-fangled new fangled newfangled - ideas ideasand , and stay in m the rut in which their forefathers ran their theircourse theircourse theircourse course . They are headed for bankruptcy and don't dont ' knowwhy know knowwhy knowwhy why . But to anyone with a fundamental knowledge of ofmodern ofmodern ofmodern modern business practices the reason is plain . These Thesefailures TheseTailures Thesefailures failures Tailures are not busmess business bU < : ; J1ess ] men , nor even merchants-they merchants they merchantstheyare merchants - theyare are only storekeepers . |