This tendency toward the production of branded staples is one of the most marked features of modern business. Coffee, tho still largely sold in bulk, is fast being put into the branded staple class by the Ar buckles and others. The American Sugar Refining Company has made popular the sale and assured the prestige of both block and granulated sugar in pack ages. Men no longer ask for socks ; they call for Holeproof Hosiery or Onyx or some other brand. They ask for shirts under a brand name that assures their fulness, cut and quality. Clothing, shoes and hats are fast coming to be bought in the same way.
8. Branded skip. le and the salesman.—Altho the principal credit for the prestige of the branded staple must be given to national advertising, there are some interesting problems of personal selling in connec tion with branded staples. The brand imparts to what has been a purely staple product something of the nature of a specialty. New brands must compete with other brands which have been established previ ously, with jobbers' private brands, and with the old bulk goods, which have the advantage of price. In the face of this condition, the new brand must be es tablished by the joint work of advertising and per sonal salesmanship. Advertising aims to divert the existing demand of the ultimate consumer to this par ticular brand. The salesman is depended upon to win and educate the jobber and the retailer. Since it is important that the brand get fair distribution in order to profit by the advertising, and since the jobber and the retailer are loath to stock up until they have felt the actual demand, a high order of selling ability is necessary in the early stages.
Sometimes the need for creative salesmanship is lessened as a brand becomes established with the pub lic. A constant public demand, kept alive by na tional advertising, makes it necessary for jobbers and retailers to carry the branded staple and it keeps mov ing more or less automatically flirt.' the channels of
trade. The distribution efforts are likely to be con fined largely to advertising., which reaches beyond the jobber and retailer to the ultimate user of the goods. The man selling an established branded staple must watch himself carefully lest he deteriorate into a mere taker of orders.
9. Selling difficulty of specialty sell ing and the problems to be met in selling branded staples have been discussed, and it has been shown that the selling of pure staples is likely to be simpler. It should be borne in mind, however, that staple sell ing now requires more real salesmanship than in former days, when competition was less keen. Let us take the wholesale grocery salesman as a typical dis tributor of staple products. A generation ago, retail grocers in most communities were called upon by the representatives of not more than two or three whole sale grocery firms. The retailer divided his business among these few competitors and kept them all happy. Moreover, in case of a pinch, the wholesale grocery salesman was usually able to offer price con cessions. Today that same retailer is called upon by twenty or thirty wholesale-grocery salesmen. They all sell about the same product at about the same prices and price-cutting is fairly well eliminated. This illustration is fairly typical of the tendency in all staple lines. To get business in paying quantities under these conditions, and to increase that business from year to year, requires selling ability of a high order.
10. Factors in a sale.—There are three factors in every sale: the buyer, the seller and the commodity. Having seen into what classes the commodity may fall, we are ready to consider methods of reaching and appealing to the buyer ; to analyze the seller and de termine what qualifications he must possess and ac quire if he is to be successful; and to consider ways of building an effective selling talk and demonstration for the particular commodity he is to sell.