MARKET METHODS AND PROBLEMS 533 



hands of the retailer. Under these conditions the retailer, unless he 

 is a fruit specialist, does nothing to encourage sales. The unattractive 

 fruit is destroying the desire on the part of the consumer, the losses 

 from bad condition are excessive, and the retailer must add a margin 

 large enough to cover these losses and risks. Attractive displays and 

 quick sales, at a reasonable margin of profit on each transaction, 

 increase the per capita consumption and make a satisfactory profit 

 for the dealer at the end of the year. Any other system jeopardizes 

 the interest of the producer, reduces the volume of business of the 

 jobber, and keeps the net profit of the retailer below what it otherwsie 

 might have been. 



The retail fruit business needs the same careful investigation as 

 that suggested for the fruit jobber, with a view to improving the 

 entire retail business system, to developing better methods of creating 

 an increased consumption, and of putting the entire retail system on 

 a basis which will make it the most vital factor in handling the rapidly 

 increasing fruit crop. To accomplish this end, the average retail fruit 

 dealer needs the co-operation of the producer and the jobber. The 

 consumer demands a service that imposes a heavy overhead charge 

 on the retailer's operations a condition which the producer does not 

 usually appreciate. 



Whether the jobbing and retail fruit business is organized along 

 economical and efficient lines, whether the purchasing, the deliveries, 

 the credits, and other features of the business are handled with the 

 fewest number of steps and with a minimum of economic waste, and 

 whether the handling of the business by the producer, jobber, and 

 retailer serves the best interest of the consumer, the author is not 

 prepared to say. It is recognized that both the wholesale and retail 

 systems are products of modern industrial and social life and that 

 changes in the system must progress slowly. The facts outlined in 

 this discussion are not presented in a spirit of criticism, but in the 

 hope that they may lead to investigation and to a clearer understand- 

 ing of the different phases of distribution, that they may induce the 

 jobbing and retail fruit interests, the railroads, and the producer to 

 study his own problem more carefully, and to study problems of every 

 other factor as well, to the end that the fruit-distributing system from 

 the producer to the consumer may be made more stable, more direct, 

 more efficient, with every wasteful step and process eliminated, and 

 all handled to gain the confidence of the consumer and to serve his 

 best interests. 



