SELF-SERVING IN EETAILING FOOD PEODUCTS, 33 



the smaller, more expensive articles in the close vicinity of the cash- 

 ier's desk. This is a good plan not only because the cashier can watch 

 the articles, but also because there are usually more people near 

 the exit and the fear of detection is greater. 



The store should be so arranged that an entire view of it may be 

 had from either the cashier's desk or the stock room, or better, from 

 both. The cashier should watch the customers during the hours of 

 slow trade, and some one in the stock room during those hours in 

 which the cashier is especially busy. 



In almost any community there are likely to be some persons who 

 make it their business to pilfer merchandise. Therefore, in opening 

 a self-serve store, it is well to bend every effort to weed these unde- 

 sirables out. This can be most successfully acomplished by employing 

 a woman in the guise of an ordinary shopper to watch for these peo- 

 ple. When they are apprehended it is usually considered best tp 

 prosecute them because they are a menace to the community at large. 

 Great care should be exercised in determining whether or not the 

 person under observation did actually and intentionally steal the 

 goods, as an unwarranted accusation may lead to serious compli- 

 cations. 



DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE VOLUME AND RAPID TURNOVER. 



The desirability of obtaining full advantage of the principles of 

 self-service by combining with them the development of large volume 

 of business and rapid turnover has been mentioned. Some specific 

 examples of businesses operated on that basis follow. The observa- 

 tions were made at various self-serve stores. The data do not repre- 

 sent exceptional cases, but were taken at random so as to show the 

 general situation. A separate store is referred to in each of the num- 

 bered paragraphs. 



(1) Sales were $12,000 per week. Twenty-five people were em- 

 ployed, of whom four were checkers, two cashiers, and six wrappers. 

 Only one exit was used and it was estimated that under this plan 

 the store had a capacity of $250 per hour, which was actually reached 

 during some of the busiest hours of the day. 



(2) One store on a Saturday did a business of $2,220, with eight 

 employees, of whom four were boys not employed during the week. 

 This was done with only one exit, at which there were one cashier 

 and two checkers. The number of customers was 2,965. This is an 

 average of 3^ customers per minute, each customer's purchase aver- 

 aging nearly $1. During the busier hours of the day the cashier and 

 checkers handled as many as 8 to 10 customers per minute. 



(3) The store's sales were $5,000 for the week. In the store were 

 a small meat department and a pastry department on the service 



