15. Limited lines.—Another inherent weakness of all specialty stores, whether local or centrally located, is their inability to provide the shopping advantages of the department store. If a customer has several things to buy, it is a convenience to be able to buy them all under one roof. On the other hand, many people, having one definite need in mind, and eager to satisfy it quickly, prefer to deal with the specialty shop rather than to hunt thru a department store for the thing they want.
16. Buying weakness.—Perhaps the greatest weak ness of the specialty store is its frequent inabil ity to command as advantageous relations with sources of supply as the largest department stores command. In the first place, large department stores can afford to have buyers in all the great markets, constantly on the alert to pick up bargains and new lines for their customers. The small specialty store lacks this ad vantage, and, even if it combines with others in other cities to maintain a common buyer at the central mar ket, the service is not likely to be so efficient as the service of a buyer who serves but one house. In the second place, even lho the shoe department, for ex ample, of a department store may not sell as many shoes as are sold by a competing specialty shoe shop, the department store can, on occasion, command bet ter prices than the latter, -not because it sells more shoes, but simply because it is a department store, and because some manufacturers are willing to give an extra discount in order to buy the prestige that is sup posed to attach to a line of goods that a great depart ment store is willing to handle.
17. Poor point of weak ness, altho by no means inherent, is the fact that many small specialty stores are less efficiently managed than competing department stores. After all, prosperity in a department store and its absence in a specialty store, are, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, prob ably due to efficiency in the former and lack of effi ciency in the latter. If there is the same degree of managerial ability, apart from exceptional conditions, the specialty shop gets its fair share of the business and its fair share of the profits in competition with even the most successful department stores.
18. Opportunity of the specialty spe cialty store will surely continue to serve an important function in merchandising. It performs a necessary
service in many communities, and the public will be unwilling to abandon the conveniences that it offers. It has prospered in the past in thousands of cases in competition with department stores, and it will continue to do so in the future. By cooperation, by handling well-known goods, by developing its strong est point of individual service, by capitalizing its in dividuality, and by using for its own advancement all the workable methods that its great competitor may discover, it will find an increasing field for prosperity and usefulness.
The manufacturer seeking an outlet for his goods should certainly consider the specialty sbop. If his goods are of the sort that require wide distribution, the specialty store is almost the only trade channel open to him. Those manufacturers particularly who trade-mark and advertise their products are likely to find the department store a less susceptible customer than the smaller specialty store, which, in order to make large sales, often needs to add to its own good will the good-will attaching to the national advertis er's products.
19. How the country general store holds trade.— The country general store competes with city specialty stores and city department stores that solicit the per sonal visits and trade of country- dwellers, as well as with the exclusive mail-order establishments and the mail-order departments of all kinds of city retail stores. Aside from mail-order competition, which is reserved for consideration in a later chapter, the chief problem of the general store is to compete with city stores which solicit the trade that goes from country to city in person. Its competitive strength here is of the same nature as that of the small town specialty store.
It is more convenient to purchase at home than to go to the city to trade. Delivery is quicker, and ad justments should be less attended with difficulties. The great majority of people have small incomes; they must purchase in small quantities, and cannot anticipate their needs to any great extent. The local store must be relied on to supply most of the necessi ties of country life.