What Makes Good Saleswomen.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4745, 22 March 1884, Page 1

What Makes Good Saleswomen.

"Do you hare many applications for work from saleswomen ?" asked a reporter of the manager of a large drapery establishment. " We can get all we need at short notice," he replied. " Most of the ladies like to hail from a large concern like oars, But it is not so easy to find many who are fully up to our standard." . " What is the standard ?'' "The question is not so easy to answer. We expect a lady to be quiet, yet con* fident; alert: and wide-awake, yet polite and agreeable; easy and frank, yet possessing a touch of firmness, and not too outspoken to linjure trade. In fact, a good saleswoman is rather a complex article under a simple exterior. Patience and coolness are among the best points they, can .possess. I gomefjmes, feel obligmj^m'a doubtful case, to test ah ap« plicant upon this point of equanimity by trying the effect of some little aggravating remark. If she remains cool and pleasant her chances are good; if she colours or bites her lips, I am forced to regard her as inexperienced, and put her in some simple department—hosiery, for example. One of the instincts that an inexperienced girl has to contend with is the tendency to stiffen up if a customer becomes a little disagreeable. But I could pick out a good saleslady much more easily than I can describe her." " Is beauty an important point ?" " On the whole I think its importance is overrated, I should prefer, from a business point of view, what is called an attractive girl, who is graceful and has a fair figure. Many of our best saleswomen are not remarkable for physical charms, though all are agreeable in manner. Some houses make a point of beauty. It is thought to be useful at counters frequented by gentlemen; but we hare often been obliged to displace saleswomen fer keeping gentlemen in conversation. The art is to say just enough to effect the sales and dispose of the customer when business commences to degenerate into chatter. Beauties are hard to take care of; we often have to ' call ■ them; that is, send them on a message to a distant part of the establishment as a hint. I think it quite possible that larger sales at higher profits are sometimes made in the departments of men's furnishing goods by having good* looking girls behind the show-cases. Nevertheless, I do not think that, as a whole we consider the value of a pretty girl, in the wages market, to be greater than that of a plainer girl who is attractive in other respects. We do not pay more for beauty unless it is combined with other high qualities. In the cloak and trying-on departments, personal charms ' are of great value, of course, and command high wages; but even here it is more a matter of figure and graceful movement than of face. It is, perhaps, advantageous to have handsome, refined-looking girls in the lace and embroidery departments. In the silk and trimmings departments we require good taste, a faculty for nice draping, and a quick eye for colours, united with a genius for matching fabrics, we pay well in these departments, and in selecting ladies for them, good looks take a secondary place. Some of the ladies are quite plain, but all are nice looking. " Women perfectly suitable for the trimmed-hat department are certainly born, not made. I assure you that few of the fine arts are more difficult than that of selling ladies' hats. The hats, with their velvets; silks, laces, flowers, feathers, and passementeries, are very complex articles. To be able to choose the particular one from stock that is most suitable and becoming to a customer's' features, complexion, age, and style requires natural gift of a high order. Ladies are always studying.dress more or less, but the number who can trim a hat taste--1 fully and who know what is most becoming to them, is small. They feel this, and although they are often very opinionated 1 in other matters of dress, they are quite to depend much upon any saleswoman in this department, whom they believe to be really competent. Hence the need of the best talent here, and, as the best talent is always in demand, tbe prices for it are high."