HOW EGGS ARE MARKETED 
trips to the general store, necessary to supply the household 
needs, offers the only convenient opportunity for such mar- 
keting. ; 
The merchant buys eggs because by doing so he can control 
his selling trade. 
The farmer trades where he sells his eggs, because it is 
convenient to do both errands at one place, and also because 
he wishes to avoid affronting the merchant by breaking the 
established custom of trading out the amount. 
For these reasons the merchant knows that to buy eggs 
means to sell goods, and he therefore bids for eggs. His com- 
petitors across the street, and in other towns, also bid for 
eggs. The effect to the merchant of lowering the price of his 
goods or raising the price of eggs is financially the same. In 
either case it is the matter of cutting the prices under the 
spur of competition. Now, the articles on which the merchant 
make his chief profits from the farmers’ trade are dry goods 
and notions. Such articles are not standardized, but vary in 
a Manner quite impossible of estimation by the unsophisti- 
cated. On the other hand, eggs are quoted by the dozen, and 
all that run may read. 
Suppose, for illustration, two merchants in the same town 
are each doing a business with a twenty per cent. profit, and 
are buying eggs at ten cents and selling for eleven, the cent 
advance being sufficient to pay for their labor, incidental loss, 
and a small profit. Now one merchant concludes to play for 
more trade. If he marks his goods down he would gain some 
trade, but many people would fear his goods were cheap. But 
if he puts up a placard, “Eleven Cents Paid For Eggs,” the 
farmers will throng his store and never question the ‘quality 
of his goods. This move having been successful, his rival 
across the street quietly stocks up with a cheaper line of dry 
goods, and some fine morning puts out a card, “Twelve Cents 
For Eggs.” The farm wagons this week will be hitched on 
the other side of the street. 
The rate of business at ten per cent. being insufficient to 
maintain two men in the town, a mutual understanding is 
gradually brought about by which the prices of goods sold are 
worked back to the basis of twenty per cent. gross profit, but 
the false price of eggs will serve to draw the trade from 
neighboring towns and is therefore maintained. 
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