that the visitor’s name was Mr. Woodring. They shook hands.
“I see you two have met,” the editor observed to Ted, nodding toward Nancy. “Nancy, Miss Monroe said she’d be back before noon.”
“That’s all right. Perhaps she left some typing for me to do.”
“And I can find something to help with,” added Ted.
“Oh, no, no,” Mr. Dobson objected. “I particularly asked you here, Ted, to meet Mr. Woodring. He has a proposition that I believe may be of some benefit to the whole town. Nancy, you might find it of interest, too.”
Thus invited, the two young people drew up chairs.
“Mr. Woodring represents a trading-stamp company,” continued Mr. Dobson. “He’s told me a little about his plan, but I’ll let him describe it again for you.”
The visitor cleared his throat, hesitated a moment, as though not sure exactly how to begin—he wasn’t quite so fluent as most salesmen are expected to be, Ted observed—then took out a folder from his sample case. He handed it to Mr. Dobson, who did not happen to have his reading glasses on, and so merely gave it a slight glance before handing it on to Nancy. She opened it and held it so that Ted could see, too.
It was a book of gummed trading stamps, called Blue Harvest stamps. Ted had never seen this particular kind before. They were beautifully tinted, and showed a rural scene, with a cow before a fence, cornstalks on the other side of the fence, and hills in the background.
“Pretty nifty,” Ted decided.
“They are attractive,” Nancy agreed, before finally closing the booklet and returning it to Mr. Woodring.
“I hear that Forestdale stores have been having a little trouble,” Mr. Woodring began, “and I thought I might have the answer.” He laughed. “Naturally, I’m concerned about my own interests, but if we’re able to help each other out, then all the better.”
“I’ve been telling Mr. Woodring something about the new shopping center in North Ridge,” Mr. Dobson put in. “There can be no question that it is drawing trade away from Forestdale. Even some of our own townspeople are getting into the habit of driving over to North Ridge, and a great many of the country people living between the two towns seem to have developed a preference for North Ridge. Their stores are offering a larger stock at slightly lower prices, and that’s a combination hard to beat.”
“Why can’t we match their prices?” asked Ted.
“I believe that’s where I come in,” Mr. Woodring continued. “It’s largely a question of volume. If we could do something to stimulate local trade, volume would pick up, and lower prices would come. I frankly don’t believe that there is enough difference to justify Forestdale people driving into North Ridge to shop. It seems to me they are going over now mostly as a matter of curiosity. My discount stamps would not only make up for the difference in price, but would also be a novelty that might induce them to come back.”
“What do you think of it, Nancy?” asked Mr. Dobson, turning to her. “We’re anxious to get the woman’s point of view.”
“I think it’s a grand idea,” said Nancy with enthusiasm. “We have trading stamps in my home town, and everybody seems to like them—anyway, the women do.”
“And it’s the women we have to consider chiefly,” said Mr. Woodring quickly, “since they do most of the shopping. After all, you can’t always get 3 per cent on the money you save, so when you can get 3 per cent on the money you spend, that looks like a pretty good bargain. The women are the ones who have to stretch the household budget. When they can earn valuable premiums they couldn’t otherwise afford, it’s easy to see why they like the idea.”
He had another booklet in his hands which he handed to Nancy. It was filled with pictures of premiums, and Ted noticed at once an electric train and a number of familiar household items. This glance satisfied his own curiosity, since he did little shopping himself, but Nancy appeared much more interested, and continued to leaf through the book as the conversation went on.
Mr. Dobson seemed to be encouraging Ted to express an opinion, as though he wanted the plan to be thoroughly talked out.
“Who’s paying for it?” asked Ted bluntly, determined not to be sold a bill of goods, but to try to find flaws in the plan if he could.
“Who’s paying for what?” asked Mr. Woodring patiently.
“Well, for printing up the books and stamps and all. That’s kind of expensive itself, isn’t it?”
“Well, Ted, as far as that goes, we can be completely realistic about things. You know—and I know—that not all the stamps that are given to customers are going to be turned in. Some stamps are lost. Some customers start but never complete their books. My firm charges the stores for all the stamps we give them, but not all these stamps come back, and so we never have to redeem them. The difference is enough to cover the costs of keeping the plan moving.”
“But who’s paying for the premiums? Isn’t it true that the customers are really paying for them, in the form of higher prices when they make their original purchases?”
“No, Ted, I don’t think that’s a fair way to look at it at all. A store sells merchandise at a certain price, as low a price as it can and still make a fair profit. Perhaps it would like to lower its prices to beat the competition, but it can’t and still remain in business. Then a trading-stamp plan comes along. The trading stamps attract more customers, and because the store is doing a larger volume of business it can now afford to lower its prices. It appears to be charging the same prices, but its prices are really lower because the customers are getting these additional premiums. But no, I decidedly don’t think it’s fair to say the customer is merely paying for his premiums through higher prices. He’d have to pay these prices anyway. The plan is really being paid for by increased efficiency.”
Of course he was a salesman for the trading-stamp firm, and he could hardly have been expected to express any other point of view. In fact, his company had probably trained him to make that little speech. Just the same, Ted felt that there was some sense in what he was saying.
“What I can’t figure out is how your company makes any money,” Ted maintained. “If you merely sell stamps to the stores, and afterward redeem these stamps from the customers, how do you make any profit? Just how does the Blue Harvest stamp company pay your salary?”
“I suppose, Ted, if you want to be blunt about it, the truth is that we’re merchants, too. We’re selling merchandise, the merchandise being the premiums offered in that book.” He nodded toward Nancy. “You know that most stores buy their merchandise in large quantities, and because they buy these large quantities they are given discounts. They then sell to their customers at the full list price, and the difference between the two prices represents their margin. Out of this margin they have to meet all their expenses, and they hope to have a little left over for profit.
“Now my firm does about the same thing. We buy these premiums in large quantities, and get our discount. Then we sell to our customers at the full price. When a customer comes in to us with ten dollars’ worth of stamps and selects a ten-dollar premium, that doesn’t mean the premium cost us ten dollars. We bought it at a lower price. But that doesn’t mean the customer is getting cheated, either,” he added quickly, “for if he went out to buy that premium somewhere else, he’d have to pay ten dollars for it. The difference between the cost of the premiums to us and the price we sell them to our customers represents our margin, and that’s what keeps us in business. Of course our customers don’t pay us in cash. They pay us in stamps, but since we previously sold these stamps to the stores for cash, the result is the same.”
“What if the North Ridge stores should adopt the plan, too?” Ted questioned. “Then wouldn’t we be in the same predicament in relation to them that we are now?”
“That isn’t likely to happen, Ted.” Mr. Woodring’s tone sounded wistful. “I don’t say that we wouldn’t