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Cutting Prices
by
“‘And, boys–you who have been so dishonest so long’–said I, ‘don’t know how happy it makes a fellow feel to know that what he is doing is right, and you cannot beat the right. It is good enough. When you know in your own heart that you are honorable in your dealings with your merchant friends, you can walk right square up to them and look them straight in the eye and make them feel that you are treating them right. They will then give you their confidence, and confidence begets business. Therefore, gentlemen, I don’t care what any of you are going to do. I, myself, shall mark my goods in plain figures and sell them at the same price to everyone, and I only wish that I worked for a firm that would compel all their salesmen to be honest.’
“With this, the old man arose. I saw that I had him won over, but I heard one of the boys who sat near me whisper, ‘Now, watch the old man give it to him.’ But he did not. Instead, he said to me: ‘This is surely a case where, although there were ninety-nine against him, the one is right. I hereby issue an order to every salesman to mark his goods in plain figures and to sell his goods at the marked price. I wish you, furthermore, to do another thing. On every sample on which I told you you might make a cut, if necessary, I wish you would make that cut on the start. I have always wished to do business as our one-priced friend has suggested but I have never been strong enough to do so. I had always thought myself honest, believing that business expediency made it necessary to give a few people the inside over others; but I am going to make a frank confession to you–I can say that I have not been honest. “‘I feel like a certain clothing manufacturer felt for a long time. I was talking with him at luncheon the other day; he is a man who marks his goods in plain figures. If the salesman, by mistake, sold a ten dollar suit for eleven dollars, the goods when shipped out are billed at ten dollars. He is the one, gentlemen, who put this plain-figure idea into my head. One of his salesmen, as we all sat together at the table, asked him: “Mr. Blank, how many years have you been doing the one-price, plain-figure business?”
“‘”A little over four years,” said he.
“‘”And how old are you?” the salesman asked.
“‘”Fifty-five,” was the answer.
“‘”In other words,” said he, “you have been a thief for over half a century.”
“‘”Yes; you’re right,” said the clothing manufacturer–and this was the only time I ever heard him agree with anybody in my life!
“‘His business philosophy was quaintly summed up in the one word PERVERSE. “Give a man what he wants,” he said, “and he doesn’t want it.” “When you find other people going in one direction, go in the other, and you will go in the right one.” He saw nearly every one else in the clothing business marking their goods in characters, and, true to his philosophy–“Perverse”–marked his goods in plain figures, and he is succeeding. Now, gentlemen, I am going to do the same thing.
“‘And, another thing–I am not going to mark just part of them in plain figures. Do you know, I called on a wholesale dry goods man the other day–the President of the concern. He told me that he marked a part of their manufactured goods in plain figures and the rest in characters. I said to him, “You confess that you are only partly honest; in being only half honest you are dishonest.” So, gentlemen, I am going to mark our goods in plain figures, and I want you to sell them to everybody at the same price; if you do not, I will not ship them.
“‘Now, I thought I was through, but one more idea has occurred to me. By selling our goods at strictly one price I can figure exactly how much money I am making on a given volume of business. Before, this matter of “cuts” made it a varying, uncertain amount; in future there will be certainty as to the amount of profits. And another thing, so sure as I live, if all of you go out and make the same increase that the one who stood out against all of us has made, our business will thrive so that we can afford to sell goods cheaper still. Until to- night I never knew why it was that he took hold of what seemed to me a big business in his predecessor’s territory and doubled it the second year. His success was the triumph of common honesty, and we all shall try his plan, for honesty is right, and nothing beats the right.’
“When the vote was taken the second time, every man at the table stood up.”