was taken up on the proposition, and the candy arrived right in midsummer, at a time when candy sales were usually slowest.

We started out by making a window display similar to the ones used by the ten-cent stores, and also had a case, filled with the different kinds of candy, in the front of the store. The two displays attracted attention from customers, and, aided by explanation as to what we were doing, the end of the first month found us completely sold out.

Some of our customers told us that they were glad to be able to get ten-cent candy without having to go to the six-miles-away town. Others said our candy was better than that sold in the dime stores. Remarks like these

George R. Worley.

encouraged us, so that in the fall we filled two cases, one with the ten-cent candy, and the other with chocolates to sell for 20 cents a pound.

The ten-cent candy is displayed in long, narrow pans which exactly fit the case. About fifteen different kinds are displayed, and we find that it is best to have only one variety in a pan so that it does not get mixed up and can be scooped out easily. The chocolates are shown neatly piled on plates, sales being made from trays underneath the counter. By this method the chocolates look nicer and their sale is consequently increased.

To cater to the children's trade we carry stick candy and suckers.

WEEKLY DISPLAYS.

Every Saturday we make a window display of candy, usually featuring the "specials." So attractive is the showing that many people will not go by until they come in and purchase a pound.

The greater part of our sales are in pound lots. We give only six ounces for a nickel, as we figure it takes just as much time to sell five cents' worth as it does a dime's. The people know they get more for their money when a pound is purchased.

Just before the Christmas season we write to every public school and Sunday-school teacher within a radius of ten miles telling them of our fine line of candies at ten cents a pound. So well do they respond that last year we sold about two-thirds of the school and church "treats" given in our vicinity.

We also make up ten-pound mixtures at Christmas time, for it is a common occurrence for a farmer to come in and say, "Mix me up ten pounds of your candy."

LAST YEAR'S SALES.

Last year our purchases of 10- and 20-cent candies amounted to over $1400, with sales in excess of $1800. The candy counter requires no extra help except at Christmas time, so that clerk hire is not an added expense to be charged against the department. So far this year sales have been about double those for the corresponding months of the year previous. Undoubtedly the business is a growing one.

We have narrowed our purchases to two firms, as we find that it pays better to buy from a few good concerns rather than scattering our orders among a dozen. Purchases are made

The three customer-producing channels I have heretofore discussed in the BULLETIN OF PHARMACY lead naturally to the fourth channel, The Satisfied Customer.

The influence of the satisfied customer is not so potent in wholesale or specialty selling as it is in retail selling. The big majority of customers of the drug store are women, and women are excellent word-of-mouth advertisers-God bless 'em!

One customer inside your store is more valuable than ten prospective ones outside your store. The store window, the printed advertisement, and the written letter are all means of getting customers into your store. there, it is up to you to see that they are satisfied.

Once

The influence of a customer is far-reaching. We may compare the customer's sphere of influence to a lake and the customer to a pebble cast into the water. The lake and the pebble may be large or small, but when the pebble is thrown into the water the circles from the splash will widen and widen until the surface of the water is covered. Every customer radiates influence for or against your store.

There are some people who evidently descended from the mule-they are such excellent little kickers. The law forbids killing them, and indeed they are necessary, however much they spoil our sweet tempers; for they certainly help to keep us on our toes as regards the rendering of service.

QUICKLY AND PLEASANTLY.

Of course we all try to satisfy our customers whenever they complain; generally we do what they ask. But do we always do it quickly and pleasantly?

To satisfy a customer's demands with the air of a martyr or with a display of temper or suspicion or grumpiness will drive the customer to your competitor just as surely as if you had refused her demands.

I know a shoe merchant who never questions a customer's complaint. He always says: "What may I do to adjust this to your satis

By HAROLD WHITEHEAD, President American School of Business, Inc., Boston

faction?" And whatever that customer wants he does, saying: "I'll do it with pleasure, for I want to have you completely satisfied with everything you buy from me."

He tells me that by putting it up to the customer's sense of fairness he often makes him satisfied by doing much less than if he offered to do even more.

Make it a steel-bound, reën forced-concrete rule never to allow a customer to leave the store dissatisfied. Of course you will be imposed upon occasionally, but it is better to be robbed a few times than to lose a customer.

It is said that the good-will of the Gold Dust Twins is worth a million dollars. Whatever it may be worth, it is so because of quality and service. The cash value of your good-will depends on the kind of service you render to the community.

A PLAN OUTLINED.

Always be on the lookout for something definite to give your customers to talk about. As a modern drug store, you naturally keep a card catalogue of your regular customers. Even the smallest drug store should keep lists of regular customers, for such lists are much safer to rely upon than a memory crowded with the hundreds of details that make up the daily work of the druggist.

I am going to outline a plan put into execution by a druggist of my acquaintance-it may be taken for what it is worth. He made use of the idea of asking satisfied customers to assist him a little in getting new business.

First he made a list of regular patrons, and to the names on this list he sent a nice little card neatly printed with this:

E. J. Jones, the leading druggist in our town, serves excellent soda.

Try one during the next week, as my guest.

Mr. Jones will treat you with every courtesy and serve you any soda or ice cream you wish free by presenting this card.

Signed....

On the reverse side of the card appeared this:

My friend's name and address is:

With this card Mr. Jones sent a letter saying that he appreciated the customer's business and intended to do all he could to deserve it, and also that of her friends.

Then he went on to ask her if she would sign her name on the enclosed three (or more or less) cards and give them to three of her friends.

He was careful to say that the customer's friends would not be asked to buy anything, and that they would be treated with the same courtesy as visitors to his home.

A LETTER TO PROSPECTS.

When the tickets were turned in, Mr. Jones wrote a letter to each of these new prospects, thanked them for visiting his store, hoped they were pleased, etc. He gave his telephone number and said he would be glad to send anything they wished if they would 'phone him.

He closed with a P. S. (women are very fond of them, it is said) offering some special, such as three cakes of toilet soap, a bottle of perfume, some special candy, at an odd price for one week only.

Mr. Jones will surely get new customers through this plan of making use of the fourth channel-Satisfied Customers.

Twenty-nine cents looks much less than 30 cents; is more attractive than 25 cents, even. I know a druggist who offered a real bargain in papeterie at 25 cents-couldn't sell it. Waiting two weeks, he retrimmed his window with it, advertised the same papeterie with a penholder, pen point, and pencil included, for 29 cents and sold out in three days!

That is one reason why I advocate offering the bargain in the postscript of that letter and at an odd price.

You spend all kinds of time, energy, and money to get people into your store. Spend some more time and energy and money in getting these people-now your satisfied customers to use their tremendous influence in your behalf.

As a class college professors are above reproach. They live clean, orderly, and respectable lives, and they pay their bills. But occasionally a black sheep gets into the fold; there is no avoiding that; and just because such a thing happens once in a great while the circumstance should in no way be taken as a reflection on the class as a whole.

Let us call him Professor X. He came highly recommended, a graduate of Oxford, and had letters after his name stretching out as long as a fiddle-bow. He was a clever cuss, too, and a genial fellow; and one day as I was wrapping up five cents' worth of cloves for a dirty-faced youngster, he came into my store, introduced himself, and informed me that owing to the fact that I was a young man just starting in business he was going to favor me with his patronage..

By HORACE ECKLAND

I was, of course, delighted. We soon became well acquainted. I learned that he had a room at the University Building, and took his meals there also. But after a few months he became dissatisfied and asked me to suggest a good boarding-house for him somewhere down-town. Price didn't seem to make much difference; he wanted a good place. I went to a maiden lady of my acquaintance and assured her that she would be fortunate in securing Professor X. for a boarder, and guaranteed that everything would be satisfactory.

A GOOD CUSTOMER!

Professor X. proved an excellent customer -very good, indeed; cigars, tobaccos, pipes, and toilet articles galore. At first he paid cash, later he didn't; and still a little later on

I found that he took a drink, and that one drink often called for another until, occasionally, he had to quit work.

You can imagine how the college authorities liked that sort of thing!

Yet, as before intimated, he was a nice fellow-when he left booze alone. We soon came to know that this was not long at a time. When he could not get the real thing he would drink beef, iron and wine, or a number of proprietary preparations which ran heavy in alcoholic content.

I did not want to lose him as a customer, so could not very well shut off his credit at once. Very foolishly I let the matter drag along until he owed me $42.60.

I began to worry a little. Finally I could not stand it any longer, so I asked him to help me out. He hedged, and somehow I got the idea that he was going to try to get away without squaring up. It was near the end of the school term, and by doing a little detective work I got my fears confirmed. A friend informed me that Professor X. planned to leave on the following day.

That evening I got a cop to go with me, and went straight to the Professor's boardinghouse. I left the officer at the door and went up to his room unannounced. He was at home, although he was pretty well keyed up. To use his own expression, "he didn't give a damn whether school kept or not!"

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS.

At first he refused to talk business, but I went right after him, hammer and tongs. I told him straight from the shoulder that he was not going to get away without first paying me. I told him, moreover, that I had a policeman guarding the front door and was fully prepared to make all kinds of trouble.

He came down off his high horse immediately. He said he couldn't pay me; that he had no money; that he had had to borrow $10.00 to get him out of town.

I believed every word of this and began to figure what he had in the way of personal effects that I might take in payment of my account. He had a lot of books, but I didn't want them. I finally settled on a fur coat he had, and a gun. After a while he accepted the

compromise, although not without serious objection. This part of our interview was extremely stormy, and I have no doubt whatever that had it not been for the presence of an officer on the premises Professor X. would have made at attempt to throw me out of the house. Our voices were often raised to a high pitch.

Well, after a time he left the room and ran down-stairs to get the gun, which he had lent a few days before to the landlady's brother.

A HYSTERICAL WOMAN.

Now the landlady had somewhat of a hysterical disposition, and to add to the possibility of a nervous outbreak she had placed herself in a position to hear a part of what had been said upstairs. So when the Professor rushed down and called for his gun, the old lady, in turn, rushed to the door and screamed for help. Fortunately my friend, the cop, was close at hand; otherwise the affair might possibly have ended with serious results, for who knows what the Professor might have done?

The presence of the policeman proved a soothing balm. And he was some diplomat, too. He took the matter in hand in a sort of an unofficial capacity, and in the end we separated the Professor from the coat and gun. Not until I had agreed to pay the landlady $10 that he owed her for board, however. I tried to get her to keep the gun and let it go at that, but she wouldn't. In fact the policeman advised her not to a move I couldn't understand until we got about half a block away from the house. Then I found out very suddenly. My friend claimed the gun as his share of the spoils. And he kept it, too!

I went back to the store and put in an hour or so rigging up a little sign. It hangs above the prescription case yet. There are two words in black on it, the first being made up of two letters and the second of six.

In conclusion I might say that I haven't altogether lived up to the "no-credit" rule, even though I fully intended to do so when the sign was constructed. But in making exceptions I have been very careful to steer clear of professors who look on the beef, iron and wine when it is red.

"liners" in the papers about a week ahead of the time we open the sale, and then we run a large ad the day before the sale starts.

The sign in the window will give you a general idea of how the sale is worked. Only long-profit goods or goods we want to get rid of regardless of cost are made a part of the display-with two or three exceptions. Some items are run at actual loss, but these are the "leaders" and the amount that any one person may buy may be restricted, if this is thought desirable.

cases inside the store: 25-cent articles in one place, 50-cent articles in another, and so on.

It might seem at first thought that a loss would result from selling two 25-cent articles at 26 cents, or two 50-cent articles at 51 cents. But by exercising a little judgment an actual profit may be made.

We are very partial to this method of gaining a little publicity, of cleaning up a little dead or slow moving stock, and of increasing our daily average. Our sales on these days have never increased less than 300 per cent.