PAYING TOLL FOR ORDERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 989, 4 June 1930, Page 11

PAYING TOLL FOR ORDERS

COMPLAINTS BY TRAVELLERS WOMEN BUYER’S PRACTICES A form of trade tactics, thinly disguised as "treating,” is seriously handicapping the retail trade, especially in English drapery houses according to letters that have reached the “Sunday Chronicle." Commercial travellers complain that women buyers, instead of being keen on doing business, are principally intent on having “a good time” at the expense of the travellers. “There’s a good show on tonight. I have not seen it yet. Will you be busy?” This is the hint frequently thrown at travellers by buyers, and even by the manageress of a department herself. In order to get orders travellers frequently arrange a visit to the theatre, knowing full well that a refusal may lead to loss of business. If it is not the theatre, then a dinner or supper-dance has to be arranged, or a present proffered. A representative of a big Manchester departmental store said that acceptance of “treats” or presents by anyone employed in the buying department of a firm was against all rules and regulations, but “at the same time there is no doubt it happens in the smaller firms.” Mr. Robert Deakin. a member of a well-known firm of Manchester chartered accountants, and secretary of the Manchester branch of the Manufacturers’ Agents’ Association, declared that there was no question about the prevalence of the evil. “In one very well-known store in Manchester, for example.” he said, “they have a ‘deuce’ of a job with their lady buyers, and the same state of affairs exists in many other firms. “When the travellers come round, of course, the lady buyer looks with much greater favour on the one who is ready to give her a run round is his car and take her out to dinner. The result is that their firms are often landed with a stock of goods which are practically no use to them. This has happened times without number. People then accuse the travellers, yet they hardly dare refuse to stand treat. “The evil is so widespread that many of my clients, some of them in quite a small way of business, have regularly to pay out to their travellers no less than £3 weekly, most of which is spent in entertaining lady buyers, who force the travellers to become agreeable to them.” One Manchester commercial traveller described the practice as a mean form of blackmail.