TRAINING FOR RETAIL TRADE

Southland Times, Issue 24826, 19 August 1942, Page 3

TRAINING FOR RETAIL TRADE

SPECIAL COURSES PROPOSED A suggestion that trade groups and educational authorities should co-oper-ate in providing bursaries for specialized courses in the various aspects of the retail trade was made by Mr J. S. Robbie during a talk at the weekly luncheon of the Invercargill Rotary Club yesterday. The right man or woman in the right job would overcome problems of any kind, said Mr Robbie. A successful buyer, for instance, should never enter the market without first knowing a great many things about what his customers were going to demand. He must do some “consumer research” and prepare a buying plan. Such planning called for great care and thought, especially when it was remembered that work of this nature was carried out at least six months before the goods were actually bn sale. Mr Robbie went on to say that the distributive trade must first and foremost look at its job from the public service point of view. The business of buying must always be tackled with this thought in mind. Giving, not getting, should be the motive power of re-tailing-giving service, giving as much as possible in value. Upon this depended the permanent functioning of any business structure. The motto of the Rotarians, “Service before self,” was also a business axiom. NEVER A STRIKE

“It is a tribute to the trade that never in its history has it experienced a strike,” said Mr Robbie. “I think it is because of the understanding and goodwill of both employer and employee—an understanding and goodwill born of the belief that employees must give the best service they know how, while employers must give the highest wages possible in return.” The distributive trade probably employed more people and capital than any other group in the Dominion.

In pre-war days, according to one authority, business was a mixture of 90 per cent, people and 10 per cent, things. Nowadays it was probably 90 per cent, people and 10 per cent, licence. From this remark you must not imagine I am voicing opposition to import control,” said Mr Robbie. “In broad principle I agree with it. But I think that the detail of its operation is too cumbersome and costly and that it is slow and inefficient in operation.”