MAIL-ORDER COMPETITION 1. Competitive strength of mail-order houses in general.—Mail-order selling has certain elements of competitive strength. These elements should be borne in mind both by those who use the mail-order method and by those who oppose it. By duly con sidering these elements of strength the manufacturer or dealer who decides to sell by mail will be able to organize along the lines of least resistance, and the local retailer, in combating mail-order competition, will be able to avoid wasting his shafts against the in vulnerable parts of his competitor's armor.
2. Chief point of strength.—People patronize cata log houses chiefly because country general stores do not, and cannot, carry all the different kinds of goods and all the variety of styles and sizes in all lines that consumers demand. The country storekeeper has a limited capital. With the best of management he must spread out that capital very thin to meet even the ordinary demands of his trade; with less than the best of management and with extraordinary demands from his customers he finds himself tillable to satisfy all the needs of the community. He can carry a few styles and sizes of enamel kitchen ware, for instance; but, if he must carry also dry-goods, groceries, musical in struments and drugs, he has neither space on his shelves nor capital available, to carry enough enamel ware to meet all the demands of his trade. What is true of the country general store is true to a less de gree of the small town specialty store.
The small dealer's inability to carry a sufficient stock in any one line to satisfy the demands created by national advertising and by the rising standards of living is an exceedingly important but often over looked reason for the mail-order dealer's success. Tho the local merchant could, if be wanted to, sup plement his stock by mail orders at the customer's re quest this does not put him on a footing of equality with the out-and-out mail-order house. A customer expects a retail store to carry stock. If the store does not have what the buyer wants, he often is un willing to wait for the dealer to order it ; he prefers to mail the order himself.
3. Low capital and overhead charges.—The mail order house does not need to carry large stocks. Many of the bulkier articles listed in mail-order cata logs are not carried in stock at all. Orders for them
are forwarded to the manufacturer, and shipment is made direct from the factory to the customer. This is one of the greatest advantages of the mail-order method of marketing. The local store must fre quently tie up its capital in relatively large quantities of merchandise. When _customers order by mail they expect some delay in delivery of the goods, and the mail-order dealer has opportunity to obtain outside of his stock the articles ordered that lie may not have on hand.
4. A national business.—The wide area of op erations of the mail-order house frees it from the influence of purely local conditions of business depres sion. Only a wide-spread industrial or financial dif ficulty can seriously affect its business. If there were a prolonged strike of miners in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, every retail store in Scran ton and in the other towns of the district would suf fer. If there were a mail-order house in Scranton, however, operating generally throughout the East, its trade in the anthracite region would be only a small part of its total business, and decreased returns from that district would not seriously affect its pros perity.
The area for development of the catalog house is practically unlimited. Operations can extend as far as the postal, telegraph, freight and express systems reach.
5. Selling power of the catalog.—The catalog of the mail-order dealer represents his entire line. The catalog is always accessible in the home of the customer. It is a much simpler matter to turn its pages than it is to gain a knowledge of the complete stock of a store by personal inspection. The mail order customer, therefore, is likely to order a larger assortment of merchandise than the over-the-counter customer. In addition, the picture of the article in the catalog is coupled with an alluring description. This is often more effective in making sales than is the mere sight of an article in a store, to which the customer's attention is not directed by the salespeo ple. If all retail clerk-s.were real salesmen, this ad vantage of the mail-order catalog would not be so pronounced. The frequent lack of effective store salesmanship, however, often makes the sale a mere satisfying of the customer's expressed requirements.