Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III BIG STORE METHODS Big stores are the result of organization, made possible by the concentration of capital. Such organization would not be effective, or possible, without the modern systems, which permit all the operations to be directed from one head. The object of this chapter is to so describe and explain and illuminate these modern systems that the whole business world will more clearly understand them. When they are understood, the principle on which they are operated can be used more successfully by all. Thirty Stores in One If a merchant who has a small store thinks that he has difficult problems, what would he think if he had thirty stores, with thirty heads like himself, and thirty delivery systems, and thirty bookkeeping departments, and thirty sets of employees, and thirty sets of charge customers, and thirty sets of cranky cash customers, and thirty sets of kickers, and thirty different styles of shoplifters and dead- beats—all to look after, all to whip into shape, and show the stockholders a profit? Big Store Difficulties Carefully analyzed, the big store has its disadvantages, as well as its advantages. In reality, the modern big store is twenty, or thirty, or forty stores combined. Some people might think that with the combination of so many stores, the problems of each would be lessened. The contrary is true. The problems are multiplied in an increasing ratio. The small store, by itself, is free to act independently. But each department in a big store must act in unison with all the other departments. It is hedged about by the customs, policies and traditions of the whole store. Its space is fixed, its methods of doing business are fixed, its style of advertising is fixed. Each department in a big store has to pay its prop...