The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Theory Of Decoration
Then, too, if there is any question of a competitive price between wholesalers, especially if the item is of small value, it is usually a waste of time (which means money in business) to obtain prices from more than two or three different firms. This applies to the retailer as well as to the wholesaler. Of course where an order is one of considerable size, it is not only perfectly permissible but often quite necessary to obtain prices from as many firms as possible when the goods are to be contracted for or manufactured rather than just bought.
As an example where it is not good policy to have over three bidders on an item, we might take the case of a special chair to be made to order. Blueprints or tracings are made of the design, and a copy of the specifications for finish, etc., should be sent to the two manufacturers who have in the past generally given the lowest figures for this kind of work, assuming of course that the quality of workmanship in each case is similar. But let us assume that the decorator receives an order to completely carpet all the public rooms and bedrooms of a leading club house in the town in which his business is located. Undoubtedly there will be considerable competition for the order. It is then the duty of the decorator to send quantities, colors, and qualities required to at least four or five carpet manufacturers or jobbers, in order to cover every chance possible in obtaining the lowest price on an article on which the price does not vary to any great extent at any time among the various manufacturers, and the decorator at the most will probably not be able to add more than 5 or 10 per cent to the wholesaler's price as his profit.
The source of supply of all goods should be kept an exclusive secret within the decorator's firm. Names or local ions of wholesalers should never be mentioned to customers; and it is usually better not to mention them to competitors, except possibly at an interchange of information. Sometimes customers have an idea that they can obtain goods through some friend at the wholesaler's price. This is merely a sham form of advertising on the part of some second-rate manufacturers and never in the end saves the purchaser a single cent. If a responsible wholesaler actually ever did this he would be condemned at once in the eyes of the retailer, and shunned from that time on.
The method employed by those manufacturers who sell retail at wholesale prices is as follows. Goods are merely marked at double the wholesale price, and then a 25% discount is offered the misguided purchaser, which still leaves a price 50% greater than the actual wholesale price.
