12. TWO kinds of department stores.—There are two distinct kinds of department stores. In one the separate departments are owned by separate. individ uals; the store is really but a single roof covering a collection of separately owned retail shops, the own ers of which contribute to a common fund to pay for the store activities that serve them all in common, but retain individual control over the sales and profits of their respective departments. The other extreme is a store owned by one man, by a partnership, or by a corporation; employes are responsible to a certain e'xtent for the separate departments, but the central office directs in considerable detail the activities of all the departments. Between these two extremes there are any number of variations. A common form in some parts of the country is a store with individual or corporate ownership, with possibly a majority of the departments owned by the central management, mid others owned and controlled by other persons.
13. Chain stores.—Another form of retail store is the chain store. When properly applied the name refers to one of a group of stores all centrally owned and operated, or collectively owned and managed for the common benefit of all members of the group. 'We11-known examples are the Douglas and Regal shoe stores, the shops of the United Cigar Stores Company, the Woolworth five-and-ten-cent stores, the Huyler candy stores, the Great Atlantic and Pa cific Tea Company with. stores all over the country, and the local chains such as the James Butler stores in New York, and the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company, which started in Cincinnati and has now spread into neighboring cities. The term chain store is also frequently applied to a separately owned store which is the exclusive agent in a community for some nationally known line, when that line is very complete and makes up a large part of the stock of the store. The Rexall drug stores are a case in point; the owners of these stores own stock in the corporation manufac turing the Rexall line, but each store is usually sepa rately owned and managed.
14. Selling b y third distinctive way of selling at retail is the mail-order method. Selling by mail is a recent development. There could be no general use of this method until the mails were quick, cheap and sure—in other words, until the railroad was firmly established and generally used. Practi
cally the whole great structure of mail-order business has been built up during the short period since about 1850. Its development has been astounding. There are no figures to show its present magnitude but we can get some suggestion of its size and importance from the fact that a single mail-order house in Chicago does an annual business of well over a hundred mil lion dollars.
Selling by mail to the ultimate consumer is car ried on by every kind of retail distributor. Some es tablishments, ranging in size all the way from the tiny home industry to the many million dollar cor poration, buy all or most of their goods, and sell exclusively on a mail-order basis. Many city de partment stores have for years sold by -mail as well as over-the-counter. Smaller specialty and general stores in town and country are gradually realizing the opportunities offered by a mail-order adjunct to their businesses. Finally, some manufacturers either mar ket all their product by mail, or else reach the con sumer by mail while at the same time they utilize other trade channels and other selling methods. The mail-order business, together with the development of department and chain stores, is an eXceedingly im portant factor in merchandising, and bas had much to do with the present complex and rapidly changing situation in the market for manufactured goods.
15. Necessity of the retail store.—Of the three methods of selling at retail, the retail store is the most important because it is the most common. It exists because it serves the people. It needs no other justi fication, and it will not give way to any other method of' retail selling until that other method is found which will serve the people better. The retailer is the great middleman; more than all other middlemen combined, he creates time and place utilities. Ile makes it easy for the manufacturer to market his goods; he makes it easy for the consumer to get them; and he serves in general as a clearing house to crystallize demand and to focus supply. Ile is an educator, a civilizer and an agent of progress. Imagine a town with no retail store! The idea is preposterous. Our daily life is adjusted to the fact of the retail store's exist ence; universal mail-order buying is unthinkable; and until some great change comes in our life, the retail store will continue to exist and to justify its exist ence.