(i 1. K A N T N G S IN \i K K (' U L T U K K 



Ski'tk.miikr. 1921 



SELLING HONEY DIRECT 



Why Price Should be Less Than Retail Price at 

 Grocery 



A hcckccpt'r, wiio hns sohl lioiu'v direct 

 to tlu' cousuim'r all his boekeepiug lifo, 

 groat (|uaiitities of it, was asked the secret 

 of his success. 



''Pricing it right,'' he declai-ed. 



I was inclined to agree with him, as I 

 thought of an incident under my observa- 

 tion but a short time before. A town fam- 

 ily had a slight acquaintance with a farm 

 family who kept 30 stands or so of bees. 

 Mrs. Jones, the farm wife, telephoned one 

 afternoon in early summer to Mrs. Esson, 

 the town wife, that she had some nice 

 strained honey for sale. ' ' The price is 20 

 cents a pound," she explained, "when the 

 customer furnishes the jar. That is for 

 small amounts. I have half of a big fiv.e- 

 gallon can, tho — about 30 pounds — which I 

 would let you have for IS cents a pound. ' ' 



The town woman ordered 10 pounds, })aid 

 ^'2 for it, liked the honey, and thought buy- 

 ing direct of the producer was fine. The 

 next day, in the corner grocery at which 

 she traded, she aioticed some strained honey, 

 and asked the price. 



''The very best grade,'' ansAvered the 

 cleik, ''is -0 cents a pound, when the cus- 

 tomer furnishes the jar." 



It was ;i red-hot Mrs. Esson who reported 

 the information at the supper table that 

 night. ''She didn't say so," Mrs. Esson 

 declared, "but, of course, I supposed I was 

 getting the honey cheaper than the stores 

 were selling it. To charge us the full store 

 price isn 't fair. It 's grabbing for the Jones 

 family all that is saved when the two fami- 

 lies of us cut out a middleman. The next 

 time we buy honey, it '11 be of a store, which 

 charges us a fair price, and gives us month- 

 ly credit and delivery service. We won 't 

 bother with buying of producers who want 

 to grab it all." 



Unreasonable? The present writer isn't 

 going to comment on that. I am not going 

 to say either, whether Mrs. Esson 's remarks 

 were just or otherwise, when another local 

 store, a day or two later,advertised honey 

 by the gallon for .$1.65. Certainly, a pro- 

 ducer's 18 cents a ]iound looked liig beside 

 a. store 's 14 cents. 



The point I wish to bring out, tho, and 

 it has been confirmed by repeated happ^'ii- 

 ings which have come to my notice, is that 

 the beekeei)er who wishes to build u}) any 

 extensive year-after-year business with con- 

 sumers, simply must see that his prices give 

 the purchaser a saving over the local stores. 

 I am not going to discuss here whether Mrs. 

 Jones' 120 cents to Mrs. Esson was f.'iir or 



was not — price is something it is possil)lt; 

 to have some mighty warm squabbles over. 

 What I do wish to Ijring out is that the 

 only kind of price which is practical is the 

 price which will build business and make 

 profits for the producer; and that sort of 

 price, in the case of honey, is a price some- 

 what lower than the retail stores charge. 



The same condition, of course, a^jplies to 

 other farm products occasionally sold direct. 

 In all of thesC; a lot. of harm has been done 

 by published matter carrying the im})res- 

 sion that consumers are most interested in 

 quality, and that, if the quality is right, tho 

 consumer won't balk at paying the full re- 

 tail price. Such theorizing sounds all right, 

 but my investigations indicate that it sim- 

 ply won 't work, as the basis of a direct-to- 

 the-consumer trade. 



The gentleman who calls around at the 

 farm, produces his bucket from the cai', and 

 buys a gallon of honey direct, may rave 

 about the quality of honey bought from the 

 beekeeper, and how it is like no other honey 

 in the world. He may do this. Consumers 

 often do. But in his heart of hearts, what 

 matters most with this gentleman? Price. 

 Yes, sir, price. The real cause of his satis- 

 faction in buying direct is the cash-saving; 

 and when that cash-saving is eliminated, tlie 

 buying-direct enterprise ceases to interest 

 him. He turns instead a crank on the sub- 

 ject of the unreasonableness of the pricing 

 methods of farmers. "Help the hogs, when 

 they want to gobble all the saving? I 

 should say not.'' Like the farmer, the con- 

 sumer is human. 



This article is intended to be construct- 

 ive. I believe a majority of beekeepers 

 who ever have the chance to sell honey di- 

 rect underestimate the necessity of correct 

 pricing. Perhaps they feel that the buyer 

 should pay the store price. If you can get 

 the store price, get it, by all means. I 

 mean, get it as the basis of a large volume 

 of permanent trade. I don't believe it can 

 be done. The full retail price can be ob- 

 tained of an unsusijecting consumer once 

 perhaps, but he is going to check up that 

 price in most cases, and the next time you 

 call, he isn't interested. 



A cash-saving over the retail store will, 

 however, interest a wide number of people. 

 Ther(! are any number of these town fami- 

 lies on the lookout for economies. The sur- 

 prising growth of the chain stores, operated 

 on the ]irin<'iple of " si-rve yourself, pay 

 cash, cany away,'' proves this. These 

 stores ai'e }»atronized by all classes of peo- 

 ple, a considerable number of whom coidd, 

 if they preferred, buy elsewhere on weekly 

 or monthly bill. They ti'ade at the carry- 

 away stores because they wish to save 

 monev. 



