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Show DELIVERIES RUIN SOME MERCHANTS In an article called Patriotic Buying, Buy-ing, In the February Issue ot Woman's Wom-an's Home Companion, Ida Tarbell says: "I have been trying to put my store on a scientific basis, he told me, The chief difficulty I have is with .deliveries. They aro the. most expenslVe. part ot my business. It Is so senseless. You know Mrs. A mentioning a woman of wealth who lived a mile and a half from the store, she telephoned here seven different dif-ferent times yesterday for articles to be delivered, and In only one case was It a lfrgo order. The gasoline to deliver three of these orders cost more than the articles themselves. But what could I doT Our willingness willing-ness to do exactly what the customer asks "exactly at the moment he asks has become a leading competitive weapon. It Is qutte as Important as price and quality. . "It Is unfair to Jump to fh,coriclu-slon fh,coriclu-slon that this freakish system has been built up solely because women must be humored. It would not bo difficult to establish tho fact that men are often quite as heedless buyers buy-ers as womon. In Washington, D, C. a grocer tells of receiving a telephone call at half past eight o'clock at night from tho Commissary .Department .Depart-ment at Fort Myer. (Fort Myor Is Msorhapsthree nUles Jr.om Jown and baa been since the beginning of .the war a training camp for officers.) I forgot to order bread for breakfast, the sergeant told the grocer. Please send It at once." |