10,000 GIFTS A DAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 5 January 1931, Page 8

10,000 GIFTS A DAY

COUPON SCHEMES AS “MAD RUSH FOR- CUSTOM”

An attack on the “gift coupon menage” was made by Mr Herbert Marsh, general secretary of the Stationers' Association, at a luncheon of the Islington Chamber -of Commerce, England, recently. Mr Marsh said he doubted if retail traders knew the danger of the scheme. Sixty-nine firms gave coupons, and some of them dispatched from 8000 to 10.000 gifts a day. He continued:

“The ill ad rush for custom continues, and this is the menace we have to face. They are not tawdry or trumpery goods that are being offered, but goods of recognised value. “We have a guinea fountain-pen offered for 500 coupons, and now if is not necessary to collect coupons at all. Ail that is necessary is to buy them. Here in Islington you can buy 500 coupons for 15s, take them to the tobacco firm, and get the fountain-pen, which the retail dealer sells for a guinea. ’ Air Marsh said' the scheme was undercutting the very traders who had built up the reputation of the goods offered.

Mr W. Whitehead, of Rollon, chairman of the executive council of the Drapers’ Chamber of Trade, described gift schemes as "immoral.” “Coupon trading is not in the best interests of retail trading,” he said, “and we must set our faces against it. There seems only one method of opposition, and that is by refusing to show the goods of manufacturers who usg free gift schemes.”