Page 4 Advertisement 1

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 727, 19 June 1953, Page 4

Uncle Chris is down, but not out People were chooey In the early twenties: If a product wa8n t up 0 scratch, people just rouldn't buy it. There were plenty of salesmen willing t0 rush to their doors with goods which did possess advanced features. At the time 1 wa8 a vacuum-cleaner salesman selling door-to-door. For a couple of ycars I had done well. The cleaner a8 good, and hard experience had taught me the art of selling to housewives. Then sales dropped off: My utmost efforts didn't stop the rot; 1 covered the samne area in half the usual time, visited more houses, talked twice a8 hard Fe but no luck. Sales just kept on dropping and 1 became discouraged_ 1 w48 down, but not out, because suddenly Isaw what wa happening. Another firm had brought out a new cleaner, much improved on mine: Naturally housewives-Ethe shrewdest of all women-~bought the new product because it wa8 better, and no dearer. My firm took immedi- ate steps to improve their model but, of course, this took time. Meanwhile it wab hard luck for Ine but best in the long run for every- one- Why? Well, people always want something berter, They want new designs, new labour-saving devices, competitive prices, goods that look better and do 4 better job. Under Free Enterprise they get them because mannfacturers Mnst 80 Ut berter thar their competitors to get sales. lnferted in tbe interests %f all sectionj ef tbe community by tb Asfociated Cbamber $ %f Cammerce of Ne Zealand. 9.3C