Piggly- Wiggly Stores

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 352, 12 May 1928, Page 21

Piggly- Wiggly Stores

An American Idea

rIE Piggly-Wiggly store of America is a grocer's shop with a vegetable and fruht department. But there are no salesmen in it, no bills aoe made out, no credit is given, nothing is delivered.

You enter the shop and you find a desk, with a pleasant young mar, in uniform, and if you know your PigglyWiggly world you have come with a basket or shopping hag, says a 9: riter from Los Angeles. Next you pass through a tierastile, and you are in a shop filled with canned goods, soaps, dried and preserved fruits, jams—everything that any housewife can possi’oly need. Prices are marked clearly- and conspicuously on every article, or rather at the top of the pile of e.very article, and there is plenty of room between the shelves to move aboi/t. Goods are at cut prices, and are, of first-rate duality, and the selection is surprisingly large. Delightful Way <yf Shopping It is a delightful %vay of shopping. For example, you vtfant to try a new brand of cocoa; the various kinds are all there, plainly ftfriced, and you may read the different reasons for preferring one brand compared with another, without "using up anybody’s time but your okn. You may hold up half a dozen kinds of jelly to th<3 light and choose the A HIODEN WARDROBE The lateyfc addition to the “Two-in-one” family of furnishing fitments is particularly ingenious and useful. It is a fair-sized ottoman, with a wellsprung great covered in material to suit the room, which becomes quite an efficiejat wardrobe when opened. Wh-en the lid is swung upward, a shaped wooden arm appears. This brings with it a perforated nickel nxl, from which depend ciotlieshangers. A wooden tray, which slides on rollers, is also attached to £he rod. The clothes are put on the hangers, the tray is glided along, and, as it returns to a horizontal position in the ottoman, side-guards ingeniously fall into place to prevent the clothes creasing or catching in any way. From ten to fifteen suits and dresses may be accommodated, so an average outfit can be kept neatly and accessibly in the ottoman.

For use in a room where space is limited, a wardrobe ottoman proves a boon indeed. It forms a comfortable and efficient sofa when so needed, and is much more convenient for storing clothes than the ordinary box ottoman. The old-fashioned variety, though quite suitable for holding underwear or household linen, will not do for anything that might be spoiled by creasing. Something similar in idea are the sofas, divans and easy chairs, with seats that lift up to disclose quite capacious boxes, which can b.e used for storing slippers, boots, shoes, mending materials, and so on. Another notion, and one that will commend itself particularly to the sterner sex, is equally ingenious: this consists of a combined easy chair and trouser-press. The press is attached to the back of the chair and remains invisible as long as the chair is placed in the corner of the room. Those who have had dealings with the ordinary trouser-press will quickly recognise the advantages of the new one—it is always accessible and yet out of the way. / —R.M.

clearest or the prettiest, without a tired young man behind the counter saying, “And the next thing, Moddam?” You shop at leisure, and you may change your mind at will and worry nobody but yourself. When you have scored off all your requirements from your shopping list you have probably made the round of the shop and are near the front of it again. If not, you pursue your way till you get there and pass behind a counter, where you encounter your first young man. You hold up your basket to him; ha runs an experienced eye over the contents, tells you the price you pay, yoti go out at another turnstile, and there you are. It is as simple as it sounds. Simpler,for there are 200 Piggly-Wiggly stores In Los Angeles, and the arrangement of the stores is exactly the same, so that if you, motoring in the east of the town, suddenly remember that you want coffee for to-aiighf, grapefruit and salt for to-morrow’s breakfast, and cold cream as soon as you can get it, come on a Piggly-Wiggly store, and are a Piggly fan and know the ropes, you can go straight in this new store to the shelves where these articles are kept in your own Piggly, and there they will be, same price, same quality. The standard of cleanliness is very high; there is no dust on any of the goods, and women do the marketing for a big house, wearing white gloves, which remain white. The Pick of the Market Women like the Piggly Wi | lies because there are no persuasive psychologists trying to make them buy things; they have the pick of the market in front of them, and they make up their own minds as to brands and qualities.

Men market there too, for the ordinary man, if market he must, likes to deliberate just as much as a woman does. And he likes to put his hand on his special shaving cream without having to look for it.

A certain amount of goods goes astray naturally, into overcoat pockets and into handbags, but supervision is exercised, and the amount of shoplifting that goes on is comparatively small. And, of course, the price of each article is small; one would have to leave the shop looking like a very stout person indeed to make much of a haul, and the young man who looks over the contents of the basket has remarkably shrewd eyes. TO HAVE AND TO HOLD In a fellow traveller’s newspaper I caught sight of the headline: “How to Hold a Wife.” What a vast subject, to be sure! It covers such a lot of ground. How to hold her when she’s learning to skate, swim or dance —the grip varying, of course, according as to whether it’s your wife or Jones’s. How to hold her when she wants to refurnish the dining room or to fay “The Invitation to the Waltz.” How to hold her when the bright thought strikes her of inviting several of her relatives for a fortnight’s stay. I have a whole-hearted admiration for the man that has courage enough to tackle so ramifying a theme.