out the city and your location isn't one of the best, you lose and your brother pharmacists in the best locations win,

DISCOUNTS AND REBATES.—It is a common practice to give discounts or rebates to religious institutions, chiropodists, dentists, and a few special big buyers, but these special concessions should be such as will guarantee you a fair profit, and it is better to "keep it quiet" just what concessions you do allow them. Many stores rebate the car fares of customers that come from out of town to trade with them. This is allowable, but if you do it too openly you antagonize your regular customers in town and they may demand an equivalent of car fare. If you are in with other merchants on the car fare rebate scheme it will be easy to explain that it is an agreement among the merchants for out-of-town customers only.

Prices are not the only inducements that draw customers to a store. Politeness, courtesy, quick service, in fact the general treatment accorded a customer is a big factor in drawing a customer to a store.

When a customer enters a store and is greeted with a polite good morning," is waited on as quickly as a clerk can approach him, is shown articles cheerfully, is made to feel that his patronage, however small, is much appreciated, that the store is fortunate to have him for a customer, and that his rights are as carefully looked after as any other customer of the store, that everything told him about an article is the exact truth, that customer will tell every person he meets that your store is the best store in town. He will say enthusiastically: "I love to trade there, they are always nice to me, they call me by name. I go there altogether because I get such nice treatment and always feel at home and welcome there. For nice treatment of customers 'they have it all over' any other store in town."

That is what you want people to say of your store. Let some other store have the reputation of being the store where nobody is spoken to unless they speak first, where they

are allowed to hang around for five minutes before anyone attempts to wait on them, where they are never received cordially, where the store is indifferent whether they trade there or not and everybody says of it: "I just hate to go in the place, they have the meanest set of clerks in there I ever saw, every time I go there I make up my mind it will be the last, they don't seem to care whether the customers are waited on or not."

It is human nature for a person to like attention, everybody likes to be thought of as somebody, to be made feel that they are of some importance; so speak politely to everybody, even the transient customer who comes in for a box of cigarettes or a nail file; start a conversation with him, he will remember your store the next time he comes to town. Go out of your way to please cranky customers, they are usually good buyers but require careful handling. Don't get into a heated argument with any customer and don't antagonize them. Listen to their troubles, sympathize with them, and agree with them when you can. Don't give them the impression that their ideas are all wrong and yours are all right; simply tell them that they are right as far as they go, then show them in a nice way how your knowledge will supplement theirs. Don't tell them outright that their judgment is bad, nearly all of them think their judgment is good. Respect their opinion even though it may look ridiculous to you. Use people right, get down to their level when you talk to them. One customer's money is as good as another's. Give each one a square deal. Be just as polite with them when taking orders over the 'phone as when you are talking face to face in the store.

Accommodate them as far as possible when they want a bill changed, and if you know them real well, when they want a check cashed. Many pharmacists refuse to cash checks, and it is a stand to be commended, but every rule has exceptions, and when you are sure a customer is all right, cash a check for him. Let him use your telephone, if he is the right kind of a person he won't abuse the privilege. Some stores abso

lutely refuse this privilege, and it is all right to do it, in fact it is better to come out strong and say so than to have a long face when you tell a customer he can use it. Whatever you decide to do, do it willingly, and what you decide not to do, be firm enough not to do it.

Another point that you must not overlook is waiting on customers in the proper order in which they come in your store. For want of observance of this rule the writer has known of several customers who transferred their patronage from one store to another. Customers should be watched as they come in and waited on in their proper turn.

To sum up, system must be observed. Your time and that of your clerks, as well as all work in the store must be systematized. Work should be planned ahead. The stock must be kept up and everything in the store must always be in order. The best method of accounting adaptable to your own business should be installed. It should not be too elaborate or complicated. Do not overlook the importance of business correspondence and punctuation. Use your advantage of personal contact with the customer, have him impressed with your store service and store spirit so that he will enjoy his visits. Bear in mind that your clerks should be accurately drilled in waiting on customers, for they always act as your representatives, and should be thoroughly posted regarding their rights and duties and the rights of your customers. See that they understand the store rules pertaining to the exchange and delivery of goods, discounts and rebates, prompt attention to customers in their proper turn, and that they are by no means to allow a customer to leave the store dissatisfied. Service to the customer is the basic principle upon which the big department stores have built up their big patronage.

DIVISION VI

BUYING GOODS

CHAPTER XXIII.

COMMERCIAL LAW PERTAINING TO BUYING.

DEALINGS WITH SALESMEN.-There are legal points to be observed in your every-day transactions with "drummers" and the better you understand these legal points the less liable you are to be drawn into criminal or civil suits. Many "drummers" make statements without authority or exceed their authority and some will promise almost anything to land your order. Don't ever buy a salesman's samples, because he has no right to sell them to you without his firm's permission. The samples were furnished him to exhibit and help him to solicit orders, they are not given him to sell. When you make certain agreements with a traveling salesman, his firm must adopt those agreements as a whole. The firm cannot reject what they don't like and accept the balance. Generally speaking, if a salesman acting within the scope of his authority, actual or apparent, commits a fraud he lays both himself and his firm liable to action for fraud. If he acts outside his authority he, himself, is liable, but not his firm. You are entitled to avoid the sale in either case, unless you have accepted its benefits, thereby affirming it, or have otherwise acted upon it after the fraud is discovered.

If you sign articles of agreement with a salesman acting in his real or apparent authority, of course you are bound as well as the salesman's firm. The firm, then, is the only one that can sue or be sued upon the agreement. If you make any fraudulent statements to the salesman in an agreement of this sort, damaging to the firm, the latter can recover any loss or damage caused thereby from you. Don't ever enter into any secret deals with a salesman to defraud his firm, for if you do, and no third party's rights have inter

vened, the firm can rescind the sale or may recover from you such damages resulting from the fraudulent act, as the court may allow.

When you sign an order given to a traveling salesman, the order is not confirmed until accepted by the firm. The salesman has not the authority for confirming sales. Neither has he a right to receive payment for an order, unless it is the custom of the territory wherein he travels, or unless he has some special authority from his firm. Some firms announce their stand on this question by printing on their statements, "Remit direct, pay no money to salesmen without written authority." In some parts of the country it is a common practice for the salesman to collect for his firm. In territories like this, if you pay the amount of your bill to the salesman and he fails to turn it in to his firm, the firm cannot recover the amount from you.

Many times a salesman will tell you: "If you sign this order I will not sell a similar order of goods to anyone else in town. I will give you the exclusive on it, if I don't, the amount of the purchase will be forfeited." Then he breaks his contract with you by selling another party in town the same order, thinking perhaps that you will never learn of it. As the salesman has acted within his apparent authority in making the contract with you, his firm cannot enforce payment from you for the amount of your contract.

A traveling salesman binds his firm, when he acts within his apparent authority, even though he exceeds his private instructions, unless you had previous knowledge of these private instructions. Supposing the salesman violates his printed instructions and gives you the exclusive rights to the sale of a certain line of goods in your town, if you had no notice of the printed instructions, limiting his authority, the contract he made with you would be binding on his firm on the ground that the salesman acted within the scope of his apparent authority.

By apparent authority is meant such authority as you might reasonably expect to be within the salesman's authority.