MABGINS, EXPENSES, AND PEOEITS IX RETAILING MEAT 51 
wholesaling tends to decrease gross margin and expense percentages 
in semi wholes ale markets. 
Department representatives were informed that prices charged for 
meat handled through these retail and wholesale outlets were entered 
in the books of the companies at the same rates charged to bona fide 
purchasers of the companies' products. Therefore, gross margin 
percentages of these packer-owned markets were comparable with 
those in markets owned by other agencies. 
An important limiting factor in the comparison between stores 
operated by meat packers and those operated by others was the small 
number of packer-owned retail markets available. There were 
present in this group of stores, as in all other groups of stores, the 
wide divergencies in cost of operation, which render comparisons 
based on few cases of minor value. 
As no significant differences were noted in the profit and loss state- 
ments for each of the stores for the two years 1923 and 1924, the 
analysis was confined to the 1923 data. It should be understood 
that there were minor variations in margin and expense percentages 
between the two years, but in general the agreement between the data 
for the two years exhibited approximately the same degree of agree- 
ment found in the case of the 74 individual retail meat markets from 
which data were obtained for both the years 1923 and 1924. 
PACKER-OWNED RETAIL MARKETS 
The total number of packer-owned retail meat markets indicated 
by the estimates for the year 1923 was 11. Of these 11 stores, 3 were 
of the carry type and 8 were of the delivery class. 
The average gross margin for 11 Pacific coast carry stores, not 
packer-owned, was 25.37 per cent of net sales. In the 3 packer-owned 
carry stores, gross margin amounts were 22.89, 21.14, and 20.35 
per cent of net sales. In the market in which the 22.89 per cent 
margin occurred, the percentage expense of doing business was 
6 and 11 per cent of sales under the expense shown for the remaining 
two packer-owned stores, so that there seemed to be definite justifica- 
tion for not considering this store as a representative packer-owned 
carry store. In its expense percentage, it seemed to be of the semi- 
wholesale class. The gross margin percentages in the three packer- 
owned markets were from about 2.5 to 5 per cent under the average 
of 25.37 per cent in retail markets not owned and operated by 
packers. 
The remaining two packer-owned carry stores, whose locations 
were such that it was believed that comparison might be properly 
made with results obtained in cities where individual retail meat 
stores were studied, showed gross margin percentages from 5 to 6 
per cent below the average indicated for retail stores of the same 
size and type of business in San Francisco and Seattle. The indi- 
cated expense of operation for stores of the same size as these two 
packer-owned stores was 24.73 per cent of sales, whereas the packer- 
owned stores showed expense percentages of 24.16 and 19.88. 
The first -mentioned percentage was thus in close agreement with 
the average percentage of stores not packer owned. The variation 
noted in the case of the packer-owned store for which a percentage 
expense of 19.S8 was reported was equaled by stores owned by other 
