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Show Our Retail Stores Mt. Pleasant is rightfully proud of the retail establishments which make up its business district. For the most part they are operated by efficient merchants who seek to give their customers honest value for their money. The local lo-cal retail merchants deserve th; support and patronage of our citizens. ci-tizens. Our local merchants arc a pai'i of a gigantic retail sytem of retai. establishments existing throughout through-out the United States. The Con sus Bureau anounced recently that there were 1,549,168 such stores in the United States, doing a total business during the yea. 1929 exceeding fifty billions of dol lars, a per capita sale of slightly more than four hundred dollars Other interesting facts ascertaine by the survey of the government are summarized as follows: "Census of Distribution figures show that of the 1,549,168 retail stores in tho United States, 497,-715, 497,-715, or 32.13 per cent, are en. gaged primarily in the selling o: food products, and the net sales ol these stores in 1929 totaled $11,-310,627,359. $11,-310,627,359. about 23 per cent o'. the $50,033,850,792 total retail sales. sal-es. The figures also reveal thrr. of the $407.52 per capita retail sales $92.12 was spent in 1929 in stores selling food products. "Automotive establishments were next in number and total sales--253.322, with net sales of $9.54ti. 897,913, about 19 per cent of the total retail sales. Per capita automotive sales amounted to $77.76. General merchandise stores stand third in irrfportance, with a total of 70,253 stores and net sales amounting in 1929 to $7,140,- 515,384, or 14.27 per cent of the total. The per capita sales ol general merchandise stores amounted am-ounted to $58.16. "Country general storea, which are a combination of food and other merchandise stores, numbered number-ed 87,683, with net sales of $1,927,-622,967, $1,927,-622,967, about 4 per cent of the total sales; their perc apita sales were $15.70. The country gener al store classification is used only on-ly in places of less than 10,000 inhabitants. "Net sales of the apparel stores, including women's apparel and accessories ac-cessories and men's wear, amounted amount-ed to 8.62 per cent of the national total; furniture and household stores, 4.57 per cent; restaurants and other eating places, 4.19 per cent; lumber and building, 7.27 per cent." |