Page images
PDF
EPUB

TO READERS OF THE BULLETIN!

The editorial staff of the BULLETIN has recently been engaged in making plans for this journal during 1916. We are going to turn out a great magazine—just watch us! Following our usual custom we shall depend upon readers of the BULLETIN themselves for a great deal of interesting and practical material. To this end we offer the following prizes, and we invite a

liberal and wide-spread response:

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 1:

Prizes Offered for Papers on "How to Meet Big Competition."

We offer $15.00 for the best article, and $10.00 and $5.00 each for the second and third best articles, under the title of "How to Meet Big Competition." For years the individual druggist has had the department stores as aggressive competitors. For an almost equal number of years he has had to compete with the large down-town drug stores. And now the chain store has loomed large on the horizon. How has the druggist met this big competition and survived? How has he adapted himself to the circumstances? Has he borrowed some of the methods of these large dealers and thus met them on their own ground? Has he succeeded not merely in keeping afloat but in advancing his business year by year? If so, how has he turned the trick? These are the questions that we want answered in this series of papers, and the subject is one of great and constantly increasing importance.

$30.00 in cash for the three best papers.

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 2:

Prizes Offered for Some Good Articles on Salesmanship.

We offer $15.00 for the best article, and $10.00 and $5.00 for the second and third best articles, on the general subject of Salesmanship. We want nothing academic no philosophy, no theorizing, no psychology of salesmanship. What we are after are practical suggestions. We hear a good deal these days about "group" sales-selling tooth-paste, for instance, when a customer calls for a tooth-brush. The sales manager of one of the chain-store companies recently demonstrated to his clerks that it was possible to sell four and a half dollars' worth of merchandise when a customer comes in for a 25-cent article. This, of course, is going pretty far, but at least it indicates the practical sort of material that we want for this series of articles on salesmanship. How to push sales to the limit, and do it with courtesy and entire satisfaction to the customer-that's the point!

$30.00 in cash for the three best papers.

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 3:

Prizes Offered for Attractive Sets of Show Cards.

We offer one prize of $15.00, and two prizes of $10.00 and $5.00 each, for the three best sets of Drug-store Show Cards. It isn't necessary to send in a large collection-six or eight cards from each source will answer the purpose. Some of them probably will be decorative, while others will be very simple and plain. Both types of cards have their uses. And this much is certain-compelling show cards have come to be one of the important advertising agencies of the present day. No dealer can afford to neglect them. Come along with your specimens— the more the merrier.

$30.00 in prizes for the three best sets of drug-store show cards!

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 4:

Prizes Offered for Papers on "Blue Sky I Have Bought."

We offer $15.00 for the best paper, and $19.00 and $5.00 each for the second and third best papers, under the title of "Blue Sky I Have Bought." Nearly every man, whether a druggist or not, has at one time or another got "stung" in the investment game. All right—tell us about Confession is good for the soul. We fully expect that the articles on this theme will be full of what the magazines call "human interest," and that incidentally they will also serve a

it.

good purpose as warnings. If you don't want. your name used, and will request us to keep it dark, we shall be glad to respect your wishes. Anyway tell us how you have got bitten, and the more severe the bite was the better will your narrative probably be! $30.00 in cash for the three best papers.

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 5:

Prizes Offered for Papers on "Luck as a Factor in My Business Career.”

We offer one prize of $15.00 for the best paper, and $10.00 and $5.00 for the second and third best papers, on "Luck as a Factor in My Business Career." Here is another theme full of human interest. Nearly every man, at one time or another, has had a piece of good fortune that has materially aided him in the struggle for place and success in the world. Luck is frequently a great factor. Write the narrative of some ripe apple that dropped into your lap without the necessity of even shaking the tree. Describe your luckiest experience. $30.00 in prizes for the three best papers.

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 6:

Prizes Offered for Papers on "My Funniest Experience."

We offer $15.00 for the best paper, and $10.00 and $5.00 each for the second and third best papers, describing "The Funniest Experience I Ever Had as a Druggist." This title doesn't need any explanation. You know what it means, and now go ahead and write some entertaining articles for us on this theme.

$30.00 in cash for the three best papers.

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 7:

Thirteen Prizes Offered for Camera Work.

We offer $5.00 for the best picture taken by an amateur with a camera sold by a druggist, $3.00 for the second best, $2.00 for the third best, and ten prizes of $1.00 each for the ten next best. Pictures must be not less than 4 inches wide, and must reach us not later than July 1. Awards will be made as soon thereafter as possible, and we reserve the right to print a number of the pictures during the year, paying, however, only for those which win prizes. A mere statement that the picture was taken by an amateur and that the camera used was sold by the druggist sending us the picture will be deemed a sufficient pledge that the conditions of this contest have been complied with. So far as the pictures themselves are concerned, the field is limitless: public buildings, beautiful bits of scenery, groups of children, odd local characters— even the druggist himself! This contest opens up new possibilities. By a proper use of it a druggist may stimulate his trade in photographic supplies. Get your "fiends" interested. Ask them to coöperate.

$20.00 in cash for the thirteen best camera pictures!

ANNOUNCEMENT No. 8:

Photographs Wanted of Several Different Kinds.

Finally, we are anxious to keep up the reputation of the BULLETIN for being the most copiously and attractively illustrated magazine in the drug field. Our readers have been of great assistance in this direction during the last few years. We appreciate what they have done, and we hope they will continue to help us. We don't especially care for any more pictures of drug stores. We have a lot on hand just now, and we fear that such illustrations have been overworked. What we would especially like are photographs of a personal nature, such as pictures of druggists' homes, interior store displays, summer cottages, camping scenes, hunting and fishing pictures, druggists' automobiles, druggists' children, and anything else of a novel and interesting character.

We hope we shall get a very general and a very cordial response to these prize offers. The first three subjects are of great practical importance, and the next three are full of humor, interest, and readability. Please consider yourself personally invited to enter one or more of our contests. Help us make the BULLETIN for 1916 the best ever!

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][graphic][merged small]
[graphic][merged small][graphic][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

Turning Waste into Cash.

Perhaps no other business offers so many opportunities for waste-waste paper, waste time, waste corks, used bottles, and the like. How successful druggists prevent these losses, and in many instances turn their waste into real money, is described in the following papers. The plans outlined can be used by other stores to the benefit of the cash drawer. We are also presenting three additional papers discussing the advisability of employing women as well as men as clerks in stores in residential districts.

PRIZE ARTICLE: $29 FROM WASTE PAPER
IN SEVEN MONTHS.
BY GEORGE R. WORLEY.

Some five years ago we purchased a paper baler costing $50. Seemingly this was quite an outlay, but we decided that if it paid to bale the waste paper at all, it paid to buy a good baler. It has, too, for the baler is in first-class condition after turning out several hundred bales.

Druggists who sell wall-paper all know how

George R. Worley.

fast the trimmings pile up unless there is some means for taking care of the waste. Then, too, the numerous circulars and advertisements which come in every week fill the waste basket many times over.

WASTE PAPER.

This daily accumulation of waste paper could be gotten rid of by burning it in the back alley, or by letting the junk men collect it, but we came to the conclusion that if it was worth money to the junk men, it surely would be worth as much to us, particularly when baled.

We figure that the baler is worth its price in the reduction of fire risk, which loose paper causes. We make it a rule of the store that all waste-paper baskets must be emptied into the baler before we leave the store at night, for, as all well know, it is very hard to get baled paper to burn.

The money we get from this source is all clear profit. Some who read this may think that it would not pay to bale waste paper, but from our drug and wall-paper store in a town of 1800 population we received $28.97 in payment for the first seven months' accumulation. The price of baled paper varies at different times, ranging from $4.00 to $10.00 a ton. We have received as high as $9.00 a ton, but our last bale brought only $5.00 a ton, delivered at the mill. When a merchant can add just so much more to his net gain without any expense (except the first cost of baler), then I think that an opportunity of this kind should not be passed up.

ANTICIPATING RUSH TIMES.

Waste time can easily be used to advantage. In the morning after the clean-up work is done and all early orders disposed of, there is the morning mail to be opened. All letters which are to be answered immediately should be placed near the typewriter so that they may be answered in waste time. Empty drug bottles and drawers can be filled, and any tinctures which are to be made can be started in spare time.

On Fridays we always see that package goods, such as Epsom salt, sulphur, castor oil, paregoric, glycerin, vanilla, lemon, etc., are made ready so that we don't have to take any time during the Saturday rush.

When possible, we try to have customers let us deliver their prescriptions. In this way the prescriptions are given the best attention, and waste time is again used to advantage.

When a shipment of goods is received it is arranged in the rear of the store by the boy

[graphic]
« PreviousContinue »