STAPLES, BRANDED STAPLES AND SPECIALTIES 1. Divisions of selling.—Selling activities may be classified from several different standpoints, each of them more or less important. One division may be made according to whether the goods are sold directly or the sale is made by means of a sample, a catalog or an oral description. Except in rare instances, goods are sold at retail by the first method. Bonds are usu-, ally sold by oral description. The traveling salesman, as a rule, sells by sample and sometimes, in the case of large technical appliances, by model. If models are not used in the latter case, the selling must necessarily be done by catalog.
Another division might be made according to the class of buyer, whether wholesaler, retailer or con sumer.
2. Where buyer seeks seller and vice versa.—Then, we may make a third classification according to whether the buyer goes to the seller, or the seller goes to the buyer. Broadly speaking, most retail selling would be of the first kind, and most wholesale and specialty selling of the second.
It is not uncommon in the case of a specialty for the buyer to take the initiative and go to the seller. Pro gressive retailers of foodstuffs, on the other hand, fre quently take the initiative these days in going to the buyer by soliciting orders over the telephone. Buyers of women's apparel go to the seller when they make their yearly visits to Paris for their importations. New York lace houses have salesmen traveling over the country calling on lace buyers. Twice a year, however, these salesmen are called into New York for a month to meet these same buyers who have come to New York to look over what the metropolis has to offer and to get their stock of spring or fall fashions. As a matter of fact, it is at this time that the largest part of the business is done. The intermediate visits of the salesman to the distant buyers merely serve to keep the buyers stocked up and supplied with new styles between their visits to New York.
3. Single versus repeated sales.—A better defined division of the selling activities is made according to whether the salesman sells a man once or sells him re peatedly and regularly. A salesman handling store
fixtures would come under the first subdivision, while a grocery salesman calling upon his trade regularly would come under the second. It is quite possihle, of course, that the fixture man might make sales to the same man on several different occasions, but these sales would be at long and irregular intervals. He is therefore under the necessity of seeing new people constantly in order to keep going, This classification is more important than the pre vious ones, because it is one that may well be consid ered by the salesman in making a connection. Where one sells a man but once, it is important to get his friendship and confidence quickly, which means that the salesman must have a personality that makes a quick impression. The most important requirement, on the other hand, in a representative who calls on trade regularly is that he shall have a personality with lasting qualities. Whether he can "get under a man's skin" quickly is of secondary importance. Salesmen and sales manager may well bear this distinction in mind.
4. Staples and specialties.—By far the most im portant classification of selling is that based on the nature of the commodity sold; namely, whether it be a staple or a specialty. A staple may be defined as a commodity necessary to the carrying on of the pri mary 'functions of living, under existing standards. Sugar, coffee, cotton goods and shoes are staples. Since there is a universal demand for such commodi ties, it is not required of the salesman to create a de mand before the sale can be made.
A specialty may be defined as an article for which there may exist a potential demand or for which it is possible to create a demand, but which has not been generally incorporated into the people's daily life. Phonographs, conducted tours and automobiles are ex amples of specialties. People must be educated to de mand these things and a desire for them must be created in each individual sale. It might be noted in passing that automobiles are just becoming staple as regards people who can afford to purchase and tain them and for those who use them in a business way.