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PUBLISHERS X< >TICKS 



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PUBLISHER'S NOTICES 



'Tis not in mortals to COMMAND success, but we'll do 

 more, Sempronius, we'll DESERVE IT. Addison: Cato. 



Wanamaker's and John Wanamaker. 



Ways of doing business in all lirst- 

 class stores have become so fixed and 

 generally uniform that the present gen- 

 eration would find it difficult to appreci- 

 ate the great change wrought in com- 

 paratively recent years in methods of 

 selling and buying in the great depart- 

 ment stores. 



Shopping nowadays means examining 

 and pricing different articles, in perhaps 

 a number of different stores, without the 

 >li.ohtest idea that the tagged or asking 

 prices are in any way subject to alter- 

 ation. 



In times not so far distant, shopping 

 was a much more complicated operation. 

 Goods were almost universally marked 

 at figures considerably above what they 

 could be bought at, or in hieroglyphics 

 unreadable to the buyer. Haggling over 

 prices was expected and "Caveat Emp- 

 tor" (let the buyer beware) a mighty 

 good rule to keep in mind. The unwary 

 purchaser frequently paid for some arti- 

 cle two or three times as much as his 

 more experienced neighbor. 



Back in the sixties there became 

 prominent among the merchants of 

 America a man who preached — and 

 practiced as he preached — the doctrines 

 of fair play and a square deal to every- 

 body. He marked all the goods in his 

 Philadelphia store in plain figures and 

 spread broadcast the announcement that 

 his plainly marked prices were as low as 

 goods of equal quality could be bought 

 for anywhere, and that thereafter every 

 customer in his store would be treated 

 on exactly equal terms. Other mer- 

 chants were amazed or amused, as the 

 mood struck them, and predicted the 

 early collapse of so radical and ridicu- 

 lous a policy, and the quick insolvency 

 of its author. 



But the people tried the new scheme; 

 they bought John Wanamaker's goods, 

 found them exactly what John Wana- 



maker said they were, told their friends 

 about the new^ and comfortable way of 

 getting a fair money's worth — and kept 

 on buying. 



One by one, every other first-classs 

 merchant in this country was obliged to 

 adopt the same policy and, as a conse- 

 quence, in all large stores haggling over 

 prices is a process entirely unknown to 

 the present generation of purchasers. 



Then John Wanamaker inaugurated 

 another policy, equally revolutionary in 

 its way. He announced that a sale of 

 goods in his store was not to be consid- 

 ered a sale unless the customer was sat- 

 isfied with his purchase. He instructed 

 his managers not to insist on reasons 

 when goods were returned. If a cus- 

 tomer preferred his money to the goods, 

 that was all sufficient. The one thing 

 Wanamaker's could not afford was a 

 dissatisfied customer. 



On the basis of this principle a mail 

 order service was then built up which 

 now extends into every State and terri- 

 tory of the Union and to all other parts 

 of the world. Purchasers no longer are 

 obliged to visit New York or Philadel- 

 phia in order to shop at Wanamaker's. 

 Wanamaker's comes to them. Every 

 crossroads' post office, express station or 

 freight depot is a potential Wana- 

 maker's. 



Shopping at Wanamaker's by mail has 

 been made so easy, so convenient and, 

 above all else, so satisfactory, that it 

 has become a veritable boon to thou- 

 sands of women living on farms or in 

 isolated hamlets throughout the coun- 

 try. A Wanamaker's mail order cata- 

 log in the house means Wanamaker's 

 great stores and extensive stocks right 

 at hand. And a customer a thousand 

 miles away from Wanamaker's knows 

 that she can "shop at Wanamaker's" 

 just as inexpensively and satisfactorily 

 as though she lived in Philadelphia or 

 New York. 



