PROBABLE SOLUTION 149 



a steady, relentless elimination of all forms of distribution found 

 uneconomical." 7 



Selling is a Service. Farmers are slow to accept the fact that 

 selling, like producing, is a service. The following quotation from 

 a farmers' company illustrates the reality of the middleman's 

 service a department store being the middleman in this case. 



"An effort was made, through advertising and personal solici- 

 tation, to sell direct to the consumer, but this was found more 

 expensive than working through large department stores or com- 

 panies owning a number of grocery stores. The Exchange had 

 sale days for boxed apples in several cities, at which time it offered 

 to deliver to any home in these cities at the flat rate of $2.25 per 

 box. It cost the Exchange a fraction over 36 cents a box to make 

 deliveries, thus leaving $1.89. Better prices resulted from an 

 arrangement made with some department stores, which paid the 

 exchange $2.00 per box and sold on certain days to consumers at 

 $2.25 per box, the retail price advertised by the Exchange. The 

 Exchange received 11 cents more per box in selling to large dealers 

 than in selling direct to the consumer." 8 



Probable Solution. The middleman problem is largely a 

 problem of the retailer, for here is where the large margins are 

 taken. Cooperative associations of producers can eliminate many 

 wastes involved in the first steps of marketing (getting a stand- 

 ardized, certificated, properly packaged product) into the hands 

 of the wholesale distributors. But the retailing feature is the 

 most serious part of the problem. Reformers have suggested 

 various solutions. 



"Carry your own bundles and save eight per cent," says a 

 New York editor. 



"I believe it will always be necessary," replies a business man, 

 "to deliver goods to the purchaser. Women have come. up through 

 thousands of years from slavery to wjiere they are to-day. They 

 are not going back. They can now pick up a telephone and have 

 a yeast cake delivered to them in ten minutes. Any scheme to 

 educate the consumer to save money at the expense of trouble 

 and inconvenience is bound to fail." 9 



The criticism is often made, and probably justly made, that 

 we have entirely too many retail stores. Some careful investi- 



7 Nystrom, Paul H., Economics of Retailing, p. 357. 



8 Report of the Growers and Shippers Exchange, Rochester, N. Y., U. S. 

 Dept. of Agriculture, Report No. 98, 1913, p. 236. 



9 Dudley B. Palmer in the Outlook, March 14, 1917, p. 460. 



