1 66 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



a sale can be made to 300,000 retailers." By this aggres- 

 sive, organized policy possibilities for placing a few boxes 

 of fruit in some obscure village are detected and exploited 

 while formerly no individual shipper could possibly have 

 the means of learning the wants of the smaller places. 

 Now, no retailer, however isolated he may be, need have 

 any difificulty in securing fruit in small quantities as the 

 demands of his patrons occur. As the total consumptive 

 power of these less than car lot markets is enormous, the 

 problem of finding a market for the increasing citrus crop 

 has in large part been solved by being able to turn this po- 

 tential demand to account through the exchange system of 

 organized marketing. 



Third, the Exchange definitely undertakes to work with 

 the jobbers and retailers instead of against them. Pro- 

 ducers of fruits and vegetables, when they have become 

 dissatisfied with the operations of middlemen, have cus- 

 tomarily sought a remedy in so-called "direct selling." 

 Reasons have been given in Chapter I why plans for direct 

 selling on a large scale must prove more or less abortive. 

 Instead of recognizing that jobbers and retailers perform 

 useful functions that the public demands, these direct sellers 

 do not see the reasonableness of simply asking whether 

 these functions cannot be performed more economically. 

 But the jobber and the retailer cannot be ignored. Some- 

 body has to receive fruit and vegetables, pay for them, 

 store them until wanted, take them to places where con- 

 sumers have access to them and blanket the credit for those 

 who serve the consumers. All this the jobber does. Then 

 somebody must display these products where consumers 

 are wont to congregate, must keep them until sold (as- 

 suming the risk of deterioration), must serve the customers, 



''■^ California Fruit Growers Exchange : Report of the General Man- 

 ager, 1914-15- 



