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Show Variations In Prices Charged In a year long investigation just completed, half the people in a group of typical small rural communities were found to bypass by-pass their country stores for merchandise mer-chandise ranging from overalls to silk stockings, drugs and groceries, grocer-ies, Professor David E. Saville of the Stanford Graduate School told the Western Farm Economics Association As-sociation here this week. High prices and inadequate stocks in many lines impelling the rural buyer to visit the next larger towns, he said. "There factors fac-tors tend to reduce the amount of rural incomes available- for other expenditures and to diminish the opportunities for enjoyment of the various comforts of life. In both large and small towns,, in rural Utah the Professor said, variations of 20 to 30 per cent in prices between stores were common com-mon for nationally advertised products pro-ducts such as breakfast cereal, canned soup, salad dressing, and soap powder and etc. "There was also evidence that in some stores who had little outside out-side competition are charging all that the traffic will bear," The income of a family affected affect-ed its shopping practice, the survey sur-vey showed families in the lower income brackets tended to shop at home mare than those in the higher-income brackets; People living in small rura.1 cities cit-ies under 1,500 population severally sever-ally reported an inadequate choice of clothing and dry goods in their local stores. More than 50 per cent of the residents went out of town to buy these desired itsms because of limited selection, too high prices, and lack of availability. availabi-lity. The professor also stated that personal interviews were had with more than 2,000 representative representa-tive families in the test cities of Brigham, Price, Richfield, and. Cedar City and 36 rural towns surrounding these cities. |