"Then," continued Roger, "they find out where the people live; if they
own their own houses, or if they rent them. Obviously, a town where
people own their own homes is going to offer a more regular and
permanent trade than one where every one lives in rented houses. Then
they want to find out how and when the great number of employees in the
manufacturing plants are paid. They want to know this so that they can
offer special sale goods and such-like on the day that the people get
the money."
That was a new one on me. I had never thought of that before.
"Everybody pays on Saturdays, don't they?" I asked.
"Everybody used to, but it is by no means uncommon, now, for factories
to pay the help on Thursday and Friday.
"When they've studied this question, they next study the business
streets to learn which are the most important.
"The most important to them does not necessarily mean the main street of
the town, but the one which offers the greatest number of passersby, who
are likely to be customers. For instance, they want to know where the
people congregate in the streets in the evening. Do they go past the
drug store and past the most popular movie theater? Do the men go
through the town on the way home, or can they get home without going
through the shopping section?
"Now, some concerns, such as the big chain cigar store people, plan to
get the corner which has the greatest number of people passing it. They
have tellers stand outside various corners and count the number of
people going each way during various hours of the day. But our people do
differently," said Roger, with a pride that made me realize that the
instruction they had given him had certainly developed in him absolute
confidence in his people. "We try to get stores with a reasonable rent
just off the main thoroughfares, but so located that we catch as many
passersby as possible.
"Now, we are opening in Macey Street, although High and Main are
unquestionably our two main thoroughfares here."
Macey Street is a narrow street running from the post-office, which is
on Main Street, facing Macey, and connecting with High. On High Street
is the theater and two of the moving-picture houses. The railroad
station, also, is on High, a little way from Macey.
"Now, on Main Street," said Roger, "are all our business and
professional men. Their best way to get home is down Macey into High,
either to the depot or to the trolley junction in front of the depot.
Thus you see we catch the bulk of the people coming from Main to High
and from High to Main. The rent is even less than you pay," he said with
a smile, "and yet we have a location which is several times better than
yours."
I felt as if I wanted to kick myself when he said that. If I had only
known that. I had bought the store, but I had never even thought that I
might have gotten a better location than I had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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