SHOWROOM TRADING

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30469, 17 June 1964, Page 9

SHOWROOM TRADING

Competition With Shops Municipal electricity undertakings should “steer clear” of what was really the preserve of private enterprise, said Cr. H. G. Hay when the City Council discussed the M.E.D. Accounts. A drop in the showroom trading profit showed that “the retailing game is not so easy as people would like to think,” he said. “I don’t know whether it is in the general interests of ratepayers that some of the money should bfe tied up in ranges, refrigerators, electric blankets, etc., when so much money is needed elsewhere for capital work,” he said. The M.E.D, was in direct competition with its ratepayers, Cr. Hay said. “No, not Hay’s, Ltd., or any other firm,” he said to an interjection. Cr. H. E. Denton said he had heard a eulogy on private enterprise, and it came from someone interested in private enterprise. But municipal electricity undertakings throughout the country and elsewhere in the world operated trading departments. After discussing hire-pur-chase interest rates, Cr. Denton said: “I am slightly disappointed at the showroom profit, but it was an honest profit made on fair trading.”

Cr. W. P. Glue said that as long as he was on the electricity committee the M.E.D. would sell ranges and other electrical appliances.

“There has been talk of competition with private enterprise,” he said, “but if you go into a draper's shop you find it is selling meat”