HINT TO MERCHANTS.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 130, 29 April 1926, Page 3

HINT TO MERCHANTS.

USE OF IMAGINATION. “If Britain is to hold her own in the ’ foreign markets, and if we are to progress towards peace in industry here in England itself, it is essential that the employer of labour, the manufacturer, -should make a far greater use of his imagination than he has done in the past,” said Mr Steefoohm Rowntree, the eminent economist and managing director of the cocoa and chocolate firm, in an interview with a representative of the Yorkshire ■ Evening News after a business tour of Africa. “Take egg-cups,” he said. “The Germans have realised that the tropical egg is much smaller than the European -egg. The English egg-cup is no use in Africa. The egg is lost in it. Consequently the German has the sale in egg-cups. East Africa is going to spend ten million poundte in railway developments,” he stated. “If I J wer‘e a Yorkshire engineer I should j try to get as many of the orders as possible tie fore anyone else obtained them—but the manufacturer must go out and see for himself what is wanted. In Uganda, with a population of ov'er 3,000,000, the natives are getting comparatively rich. Last year they bought thousands of British bicycles. That shows they havte got the money and are prepared to spend it. We must get in early. The manufacturer or j some high administrative official * should go out and study the psycho- I logy of the natives. If I made hardware I should go out and find out what kind, of hardware they wanted, what colour they preferred, what price—in Uganda the unit is 10 cents. There was another striking example of the value of this personal survey. In scores of little villages throughout Africa he noticed a local store sur- | rounded by piles of printed calico. He asked if it wals British. No t it was | Dutch. A firm in Holland sent a de- j signer out every year to study the nounoedi in Parliament that the cost J his designs on the spot, showed them ; to the women, and those designs they j approved he sent to Holland to be used for printing on the expert calico. So thlty had captured the market! The visit of the manufacturer to his for- j eign market, continued Mr Rowntree. ' enabled him net only to -study the market, but to get into personal touch

with his customers. There was still room lor sentimtent in business. H? could, moreover, see his agent. “Yours isn’t the only agency a man holds, and you cannot expect him to do his best wits']out a living contact with the home firm. 1 have only been Lack a fortnight,” said Mr Rowntre'?, “and, we have already paid the expenses c£ my trip in increased export sales.”