EXPENSE FACTORS IX CITY DISFRIBUTIOX OF PERISHABLES 
9 
the expenditure of a great deal of time and effort. In addition to 
the general services enumerated in the first five items, the filling of 
customers' orders alone involves a number of separate acts. These 
include (1) taking the goods desired by the customer from the dis- 
play space or from the reserve stock of goods, (2) weighing or measur- 
ing or counting the desired quantity, (3) putting this up in a satis- 
factory package for delivery to customers, (4) computing the amount 
of the sale, (5) making a record of the transaction, and (6) obtaining 
payment. These several acts have to be repeated with each sale, 
requiring the personal attention and time of the retailer or his em- 
ployee. 
Retail sales in the metropolitan area are prevailingly made in 
small quantities of a few pounds or quarts, a dozen, or a single unit, 
according to commodity. Individual sales range in volume from 
Fig. 3.— A typical retail store display of fruits and vegetables 
1 pound to 7 or 8 pounds of articles sold by weight, from 1 to 5 quarts 
when sold by measure, half a dozen to a dozen fruits, 1 or 2 heads of 
lettuce, 1 or 2 melons, and corresponding small quantities of other 
perishables. From 15 to 50 separate retail transactions are usually 
required to dispose of a single shipping package or hundredweight. 
Although sales to customers are occasionally made in larger volumes 
than these, this small-sized retailing is the prevailing practice in the 
New York metropolitan area, and exists to a great extent in other 
large cities. Accompanying the multiplication of services required 
in such small-unit retailing, there is also a considerable element of 
shrinkage, arising from division of original packages into numerous 
small-sale units. The smaller these units, the more numerous are 
the opportunities for loss from this item of shrinkage. 
The quantity of goods bought at one time by an individual cus- 
tomer bears little relation to the amount of service and attention 
86186°— 26 2 
