THE CHEMIST’S SHOP

Evening Star, Issue 19784, 7 February 1928, Page 3

THE CHEMIST’S SHOP

REMEDIES, ANCIENT AND MODERN FASHION A TRADE FACTOR. “ New occasions teach now duties,’ and trade, like everything else, must keep pace with the times. Fashions conic and go, supply and demand are affected by many causes, but the successful trader is lie who suits bis wares to the needs of his day and generation. ’Many a chapter could he written on the romance of industry, its growth or failure through factors natural, accidental, or lorcsccn, and Hie way in which now avenues are opened up by inherent influences or external agency. A treatise on so vast a subject is beyond the scope of any newspaper article, hut every branch of retail trade provides scope for philosophic thought, and there is an object lesson in every shop window. Take, for instance, that of the modern chemist. It is perhaps unwise to use the shop window as an illustration ol progress in (his particular trade, for many a chemist lias resolved (with a wise understanding of purchasing psychology) to alter his window trout but little from what it was in the bygone days, hut a glimpse ol the shop’s interior shows how modern demands have multiplied, and how the complexities of civilisation have gralted branch after branch on the parent root of an ancient and honorable profession. A chemist’s shop is no longer just the homo and laboratory or the pharmacist; it is still a centre ol applied chemistry, hut it is also a complex departmental store, a microcosm of many trades, and n mirror of industries which find employment for workers in every part of the world. A tube of toothpaste was the innocent cause of this dissertation. An Auckland ‘Star’ representative who visiter! a well-known city store was struck by the multiplicity of brands. In one cabinet he counted over thirty different makes of dentifrice, and was moved to inquire whether there was a demand for so many. The chemist’s reply was prompt and definite. “ Those are. only the best selling lines,” lie said. “There are plenty more besides, and they certainly wouldn’t bo there unless the public wanted them,” The same principle applies to thousands of other commodities. Toilet preparations, patent foods, proprietary medicines, disinfectant compounds, and surgical appliances are supplied in a variety and profusion which were undreamed of even a few years ago, and there is a demand tor them all.

fashion is a migliiiy factor in trade prosperity. Take as an example the enormous present-day demand for face powder, lipstick, nail polish, and oilier items in the modern girl’s equipment, _ Fifty, nay, twenty years ago, the girl who powdered her face and brightened the color of her lips was looked at askance. She wasn’t quite “nice,” in fact, and the pious Victorian or JOdwardinn chaperone would hint at all kinds of hidden wickedness. Nowadays, however, a girl docs as she pleases in such matters. If she desires to powder ber nose she powders it; it lie' complexion needs retouching, she retouches it, and if she desires to do so in public she does so. Nobody minds and nobody is the worse, whilst trade is all the better, and there is work for busy hands in many a factory at Home and in other countries.

Nor are women alone in creating work for the “ luxury trades.” The more male is no longer contented with an old-fashioned razor and a. Jump of curd soap. He, too, demands perfection in his toilet accessories, and he demands variety as well. To name the different brands of hair oil, shaving soap, safety razors, and toothpastes in popular vogue is almost as big a task as to enumerate the contents of beauty’s armory. The same principle applies; the demand is there and the salesman meets it.

It was interesting to learn from a member of the trade that the makingup of medical prescriptions is still a very large and important branch of tho chemist’s daily work. Patent preparations sell to an extent which could never have been anticipated, but the public lias never wavered in its trust of the medical profession, and tho chemist is still the doctor’s right-hand man “As a matter of fact,” said the principal of a well-known retail establishment, “ our prescription work is greater than it used to be, for many doctors nowadays do not employ a private dispenser,”-