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until we have some spare time in which to check it up and put it on the shelves.

To keep the boy busy and out of mischief in his spare time he can be asked to fill up the bottle drawers. His day for washing bottles is practically over, as washed and corked bottles can now be purchased as cheaply as the other kind. The boy can also be entrusted to fill bottles with such common sellers as linseed oil, turpentine, etc. These tasks teach a boy that every minute counts for something and that a minute wasted is a minute lost.

All used pint and quart bottles we fill with oil, turpentine, varnish, disinfectants, etc., a stock of which we keep on hand at all times for convenience during rush hours. Smaller bottles we have washed up so that they may be used for five- and ten-cent sales of turpentine and external preparations. Needless to say, medicines for internal administration are never dispensed in used bottles.

SAVING BOXES.

Used boxes such as five-pound chocolate containers we save until toward Christmas time. Then we have one of the clerks in his spare time cover the boxes with holly paper. We get five cents for each. All the pasteboard boxes of large dimensions we cut up and use for backing-in pictures in our picture-framing department. All wrapping-paper is folded and kept for wrapping rough packages and express bundles. Oftentimes we have people come to us for wrapping-paper, as they know that we have it for our customers. All twine from packages is folded and kept for tying up outgoing bundles. The nails out of boxes are kept so that they may be used again when we ship out goods. The wooden boxes are kept in a pile at the rear of the store and are sold each week to a man in the box business.

A SYSTEM THAT KEEPS DOWN EXPENSES. BY HARRY L. WOHLFORT.

The store in which I work is one in a chain of seven, which serve a valley community in a far western State.

In our stores, an unyielding order of service has been established; a system so acutely developed in every part that, in the matter of small savings alone, we have achieved a place

from whence we can look upon the total gain as something worthy of regard.

In our stores, to save is a grace; to rescue from a ruinous end so small an item as a pin is to acquire excellence-in the sight of the management.

To make this saving grace easy of accomplishment, every convenience is furnished. Handy to the cork drawers is set a box of considerable size and into it is cast every soiled cork not too badly broken to be used again. Corks unfit to be returned to the drawers because of contamination with bottle necks into which they will not fit properly help appreciably to increase the contents of the box.

When the accumulation has reached a convenient bulk, an hour's boiling through two waters in which has been dissolved either borax or sal soda, yields, after drying a day in the sun, a two- or three-gross lot of corks. Although the corks are darkened somewhat, they are pure and clean.

Sorted by size back into the cork drawers, they are, by reason of their color, readily enough perceived among their fellows so that they may be selected easily. Hence, when containers filled with carbolic acid, wood alcohol, turpentine, iodine, etc., demand a cork, these. darkened ones may be used, lawfully and without any transgression of drug-store ethics.

It goes without saying that these reclaimed. corks are never used to stopper remedies for internal use nor for prescription work of any

nature.

OLD BOTTLES.

Every style of old bottle which is brought into our stores, and all glass containers as they become empty, are washed at once, the labels removed, and, after draining, the bottles are sorted according to size and placed on a convenient shelf set aside for the purpose. In bottling oils and similar substances, these containers are always used, effecting a vast saving in our glassware outlay. Empty perfume bottles of the half-pound size, free from their dressings, are transformed by our store labels into inviting packages of extract of witchhazel, bay rum, or better still, a shaving lotion of our own composition.

A great number of calls from stockmen, for carbolated petrolatum in pound packages, is met with in our stores. To answer this de

mand inexpensively to the consumer and yet maintain a satisfactory profit to ourselves, we preserve our empty pound-size lanum tins and free them of their labels by immersion in cold water. This treatment does not affect the particles of lanum adhering to the interior of the tins, which, as the hot petrolatum is flowed in, unite with it readily and add to the efficacy of the ointment.

From our wholesale house comes almost all the five- and ten-pound paper bags we require -all gained to us by the simple process of smoothing out carefully the bags in which clean and harmless drugs have been shipped.

This same source provides us all the heavy shipping paper we need; hundreds of small rubber bands are gained in a similar manner.

Removing and saving all the office pins and paper fasteners, which reach us on bulletins and invoices from the main office of our firm, makes added profits for our stores.

CUTTING LAUNDRY BILLS.

To save our towels and laundry bills, paper napkins, slightly soiled or crumpled by fountain use, are utilized to wipe out graduates in which oils have been measured and to clean the ointment tile after use.

"Spare time" is a situation unrecognized in our stores, unless it is that this term designates such intervals as occur between customers and our work of caring for the store.

At these times there are capsules of aspirin, quinine, and the like to fill, and packages, in various sizes, of household drugs, such as alum, borax, salts, sulphur, etc., to box and label. We also manufacture all our galenicals and not a few special preparations on which we enjoy a considerable demand.

Our chief aim, of course, is attention to our customers and to our stores. After these things are accomplished, there is always the unending recital of little matters to attend to; they are little when considered individually, but in their total they amount to much.

UTILIZING DULL DAYS TO "CASH IN" ON PROSPECTS.

BY E. ALLEN HELLER.

Our store is not unlike many others in country towns there sometimes occur days when, for one reason or another, customers do not come in with their ordinary frequency. These "slow days" are always an occasion of much

waste time, for while they offer an opportunity for house-cleaning and the completion of sundry small jobs, a whole forenoon may often be considered wasted because the income does not meet expenses.

We decided that on those days when the customers were not coming to the store we would go out to them. This work was delegated to me, and it was understood that a quiet day was my signal to go out into the country and sell phonographs.

THE PLAN.

This is how we work the plan. Each clerk in the store keeps on the lookout for phonograph prospects. These prospects are reported to me on a card by the clerk who discovers the prospect, with as full particulars as the clerk knows.

Here is the way in which we sometimes turn a chance remark into a sale. A man who was drinking soda at our fountain, on hearing a phonograph playing in the store, remarked to the soda clerk, "My wife is crazy for a phonograph." That is all that was said, and a little later the soda boy handed me a card, on which was written the customer's remarks together with his name and address.

The second or third day afterward was a slow one. I went to the livery stable where we had arrangements for a rig, drove out to that man's house, and left a phonograph "on trial." The rest was easy. We made the sale, which added forty dollars to the income of a "slow morning."

Ordinarily, perhaps, a druggist does not have three gross of 10-ounce green panel bottles on hand, nor ten gallons of rancid cottonseed oil. However, such was our case, and here is the way we turned both into cash.

RANCID OIL TURNED INTO MONEY.

Bill, who washes rigs at the livery stable, has seen better days. He was a good salesman, but booze put him down and out, which accounts for his job washing buggies and automobiles. One day when going out I noticed that he was having a hard time putting a polish on a big touring car. I found that he was using some expensive patent preparation and getting only ordinary results. I worked the rancid oil into a good mixture, one which would polish quickly, dry hard, and not pick up dust. Bill now uses the polish for his own work. Moreover, he took my suggestion and sells his

customers a bottle of the polish for the piano and furniture at home, and recommends that the purchaser come to our store and get a good chamois to take up the excess polish.

We used up the three gross of dead-stock bottles, and now we are putting up the polish in various lots of old bottles which had accumulated in the store during the past few years. When the rancid oil was all used, we got three more five-gallon cans which had gone bad on our grocer. We will soon be looking for another job lot of oil.

BILL'S OPPORTUNITY.

We have sold nine dozen one-dollar chamois skins at a good profit, disposed of the original lot of oil and bottles, and are making a profit of nine cents a bottle, figuring the oil at 50 cents a gallon, and the bottles at 15 cents a dozen. We have given Bill the exclusive right to sell the polish made from this formula, and Bill is polishing himself up, as well. I believe he is going to come through all right and get another start in the world, even after all his "wasted time and used bottles."

MARKETING A SPECIALTY IN USED BOTTLES.

BY THOS. C. MINNICH.

What's the use of opening an envelope by rending it in twain and then throwing it in the waste basket with possibly some of the contents destroyed? Why not open the letter carefully and neatly with a ten-cent letter opener and file the used envelope in a pigeonhole? Then you will have something on which to figure up your business at night.

I have a large box in my back room into. which all my clerks are instructed to put every small bit and piece of paper that comes to hand during the day. We send dozens of prescriptions and packages over the mail routes every morning. When we have a package to send through the mails we go to the paper box and find plenty of waste paper in which to securely wrap it. We have not had one bottle broken in the mails during our twenty-five years' experience.

In common with the average small-town druggist we use about three hundred fourounce grape juice bottles during the soda fountain season. Instead of throwing the empties out in the back yard or putting the dirty bottles in a dirty old box in a dirtier old cellar I have

these bottles washed up nice and clean. Then I fill them with turpentine, and put on them a nice attractive label bearing the title "Pure Turpentine." They sell like hot cakes at 10 cents per. And the finished product costs only two and one-half cents.

I keep my store, and everything in it, clean and attractive. When we empty a bottle or can or box, it is cleaned up and put away in a clean place, to be used at some future time.

We use our spare time in fixing up the store, dusting the show-cases and keeping them dusted. We clean up our greasy ointment jars, we filter the sediment from bay rum, and, in general, do everything that will make the store neat and attractive in appearance, thereby tending to increase our trade.

A LITTLE FORESIGHT PREVENTS PAPER

WASTE.

BY J. K. BROWN.

Experience gained in New York, Baltimore, and in several small towns in North Carolina and Virginia has taught me the enormous waste of wrapping-paper in drug stores. The reasons for this waste are, perhaps, the seemingly small cost of the paper and the high speed at which druggists are many times required to work.

I have found it to be more economical-and what is more important, to produce neaterlooking packages-to have only one paper roll and one width of paper.

In wrapping articles, whether large or small, I tear from the roll a piece of paper one and half times the circumference of the merchandise to be wrapped. The paper is then placed on the counter, and after laying the article upon the paper, any excess is removed by using the edge of the counter as a knife.

The excess paper is allowed to remain on the counter and used to wrap up small packages.

After the day's work is over, or when the accumulation becomes unsightly, I make the left-overs into powder papers of assorted sizes. This is done by folding the sheets together to the size desired, using a spatula to divide the papers and to trim the edges. By doing this very little paper is "wasted."

With a little practice, this method is easy to follow. It saves dollars and makes neater packages that tend to win customers.

Should Women Clerks Be Employed?

THEY MEAN INCREASED PROFITS.

BY MRS. CLAUD A. SMITH.

Women have proved their sound, practical sense of value, their keen business insight, and their advertising abilities in every part of the commercial world. And in no other line are these essentials for really good salesmanship -combined with feminine tact and womanly perception-of such incalculable worth as in a drug store.

There are various side-lines that are being cleverly and successfully handled by women. Mr. Cunningham, of Detroit, according to a statement in the August, 1915, issue of the BULLETIN, contends that women in charge of sundries, toilet goods, stationery, etc., are more effective than men. He is right.

The spenders of to-day are women—-most of the modern advertising is a direct appeal to women. A woman in a drug store, understanding the needs, fancies, and whims of her own as well as the sterner sex, can be of real profit to her employer.

TACT, SYMPATHY, AND POLITENESS.

By her skill in rearranging and beautifying her husband's drug store, and by her tact, sympathy and unfailing politeness, a Texas woman raised the yearly profits from $500 to $5000. Another woman's novel idea of private booths, cleverly designed with flower canopies, for the soda trade, caused the daily soda receipts to treble.

Another fact of interest to the druggist who watches expenses closely is that a capable woman clerk will often work for less than a similarly-qualified man. When the recent "war and hard times" gloom fell upon the South, many drug-store proprietors were forced to dismiss clerks. One man who let his two men clerks go and secured a woman, says: "She's worth more than the two of them, but works. for less."

Loafers are proverbially poor trade-getters. In a drug store they actually repel customers. A woman in the store is usually a good guaranty of "Free from Loafers." Women will invariably pass a store full of smoke, loud talk, and bad manners, for one in which she finds these lacking and a woman to consult. Comprising the customers of residential dis

trict stores are women and children whose needs, in drugs, rubber goods, stationery, toilet articles, etc., a woman is preeminently fitted to supply.

A woman demonstrating cold creams or massage creams to women can sell more in a day than can a man who talks for a week. The woman knows!

In the purchase of medicines, toilet goods, and rubber goods especially for women, a woman prefers to buy from a woman.

A forcible instance of this fact was brought to my attention not long ago. I had stepped in my husband's store for a few moments and a young lady came to me saying, "I've just been waiting until you came. I want some Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, but did not like to ask Mr. Smith." This feeling may be false modesty, but it means dollars in the pocket of the druggist who recognizes it and provides for it.

A department especially for women and children is a side-line that is necessary, and one that is beneficial to the community at large and profitable to the druggist.

Mail-order houses are drawing great volumes of trade from women on the very articles every druggist has in stock. Thermos bottles, hot-water bottles, syringes, Castile soap, pure olive oil, absorbent cotton, are found in every drug store. drug store. If these articles and all other supplies for maternity and infant use are placed in a special department in charge of a tactful, experienced saleswoman the result is, almost always, increased profits.

Women are opening independent shops for infant supplies, obstetrical and maternity necessities, and are making good. These shops are, by rights, logical adjuncts of the drug store. The alert druggist should recognize them as such and make them a part of his busi

ness.

BETTER SERVICE AT LESS COST.

BY WILLIAM J. RICHARDS.

In a residential district where the clerks are really acquainted with, and have friends among, the customers, a woman clerk adds to the store's business and does it at less cost than a male clerk of equal efficiency.

There are many things in a drug store which

man.

a woman can do to better advantage than a For instance, take the matter of dusting a store and keeping it clean and orderly. A girl is naturally adapted to that end of the work and will take more interest in it and do it better than a boy or even a man.

Behind the candy case the girl is also of more value. She is neater about the handling of the goods and takes pride in keeping the case spick and span. If she is attractive in appearance and popular she has many friends -of both sexes-from whom she will coax much business.

In order to encourage our salesgirl to take the greatest possible interest in the welfare of her department we give her complete charge, even to the buying of the candy. The responsibility incites her to do her level best. It "puts her on her mettle."

We find that the saleswoman is equally efficient at the cigar counter. In the rubbergoods department she is especially valuable to wait on that class of women customers who are sensitive about telling their wants to a male clerk.

At the soda fountain and at the tables many of our best customers prefer to have their wants attended to by a waitress rather than by a waiter. In keeping the fountain and glassware clean, a girl seems to have the knack of doing it better and more economically than a man. Even when it comes to dispensing she can do her part.

Aside from the fact of the greater efficiency of a girl in these various departments, a further most important point is that she will work for a much less salary than a man of equal capability.

Of course there is a lot of heavy work that a girl cannot be expected to do, and there are some clerical duties in which she is inferior to a man. But no matter how small the business is, there is room for at least one woman clerk -especially if she is given responsibilities that provoke her to do her best.

WOMEN LIKE TO TRADE WITH WOMEN. BY J. DAVID DOTY.

A drug store in the residential part of a city cannot depend on transients for the bulk of its business, but must, to a large degree, secure its trade from a number of regular customers who come to the store for all of their

drug needs. Necessarily the majority of these customers will be women from the surrounding district-either housewives or household servants. The saleswoman in the store has the better chance to gain and hold this trade, for a woman feels more free to make many of her personal, toilet, and household purchases from another woman.

The woman clerk is in a better position to establish and hold a toilet-goods business. She knows the selling points of toilet articles from experience, and is better prepared to demonstrate and show the superiority of the different preparations carried in stock.

The woman in a store is by far the best person to hold the personal business of women customers. Just as women are employed in dry goods and department stores to attend to the personal needs of women, so the drug store in the residential section must employ women, or the big stores in the heart of the city will get the trade.

Another class of customers that a residential district drug store must depend on is the children, who often do all the drug buying for their families. A diplomatic woman can hold the business of all the children in a neighborhood.

I am familiar with the workings of two drug stores doing business within a block of each other in the residential part of a city and near to a college. One store employs a young woman. This store is thronged at nearly all times with women and children from the neighborhood. The college women trade there because of the woman employed, and so do most of the young men-for the same rea

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