OCR Text |
Show Records Show Nation Off on Buying Jag , - As Retail Sales Increase 150,000,000 f ,1.. ,j i ,s i' - ! , ' - t , ' With 51.0 more money In circulation cir-culation than In midsummer 1;$3, savins banks overflowing, nnd dividends resumed, Amoricn Is off on a buying jaR. Stlmulnfed by newspaper advertising gains in 52 cities of 14.270,211 lines in the first six months of 1035, over last year, retail sales in principal fields are up $150,000,000 over 1934 figures. Marked Increases In buyer traffic at the . nation's commercial crossroads, Chicago's Merchandise Mart, prove 1935 merchants are seeking profitable lines. Above, Merchandise Mart, world's biggest, building. Below, automobile factories hit peak production; inset, T. J. Reed, general manager of the Mart. CHICAGO. Green lights are - blinking:, semaphores are down and the American dollar express is roaring through the country. Blast-furnaces are bellowing and piercing the blackness over saeth 4 industrial regions. Faces of passersby are brighter and nickels are rattling on general gen-eral store counters from Maine to California. America Is off on a new buying jag. In midsummer more than 15 billion dollars were skipping skip-ping from wallet to wallet, 51.6 more money in circulation circula-tion than at the endof July, 1933 Mutual savings banks showed a gain of $249,674,048 in deposits during the twelve months ending July 1, 1935. During August, 1935, 674 corporations cor-porations declared $10,824,175 more .in dividends than were ladled out in the niggardly mel-i-.ti-outti:irs of August, 1934. Siimuif.isd by newspaper ad-veriis'.us; ad-veriis'.us; which in 52 leading oisiei fcaiced 14,270,211 lines in ;he Si-il s'.'C months of 1935 over ' - Mi-.-.t period a year ago, sales I of commodities of every cate- gory are dancing on new ledger ceilings. Indicative of better times is the graph of retail sales in the principal fields showing approximately approxi-mately $150,000,000 increase, in the first seven months of 1935 over the corresponding period of 193 4. This briskness in the store business throughout the country is keynoted by the new records being set in buyer traffic at the Merchandise Mart here, the world's biggest building and the country's No. 1 barometer of wholesale trade. Converging from all sections of the country to view 5,000 lines of merchandise displayed by 600 tenants at the Mart, buyers buy-ers with flowing fountain pens are rolling up to the door in shiny new cars at a rate of 9,500 a month. According to T. J. Reed, general manager of the huge trade stethoscope, this is an increase of 1,000 buyers a month and proves that 1935 merchants are actively seeking new profit-realizing lines instead of waiting for the drummers to come tothem. With this leap in buyers' aetiv- ity, trends toward larger orders and a heart-warming demand for merchandise in the higher-grade higher-grade brackets are being noted. One of the largest furniture manufacturers in the country, exhibiting at the Mart, reports a 75 increase in sales, and from a big shirt manufacturer comes news that production of shirts priced from $5 up' hums op a twenty-four hour schedule. Other commodities are being hunted down with equal buyer relentlessness. The January-February January-February market for house-furnishings house-furnishings had a registration of 6,700 buyers compared to 4,000 last year and the July-August market in the same division attracted at-tracted 9.000 buyers compared to 7,500 in midsummer, 1934. On almost every business front America's upswing is being noted. not-ed. The automobile industry, for example, Is riding the curve to a production of 3.525,000 cars and trucks for 1935. topping 314 million for the first time since 1930. And for tb'e fii;:,' time in history, gasoline consumption con-sumption during the first six months of 1935 catapulted over the eight billion gallon mark. |