Likewise the furniture craters upon the ninth floor oftimes find their
job a sizable one indeed. The boxing of a divan or a dining-room table
is no easy task whatsoever. And in cases where the delivery is to be
made within the limits of Macy service it is often avoided entirely. The
freight elevators of the store are of the largest size ever designed; so
big that a heavy motor truck is no particular strain upon their
individual capacity. One of these trucks can be and is driven straight
to and from the ninth floor. After it has reached the department the
placing of fine furniture in its cavernous interior is merely a nicety
of planning and arrangement, a skillful use of ropes and blankets and
padding. The truck may run to any point within forty or fifty miles of
the store at less cost than crating; even though crating be done at
cost, itself.
So spread the tentacles of Macy's, those long arms of distribution that
keep the store from ever being a merely abstract thing. The bright red
and yellow wagons and trucks--each bearing its good-luck symbol of the
red star--carry Herald Square to the far limits of a far-flung city. The
men who ride them are upon the outposts of salesmanship. Yet through
system and through organization they are forever closely connected with
it. The blood that courses through your finger-tips comes straight from
your heart. The life-blood of understanding, of enthusiasm, of morale,
that Macy's outriders bring with them is the life-blood of the humanized
machine that functions so steadily there in the heart of Manhattan.
VI. The Macy Family
In the bazaars of ancient Bagdad, the human factor was not only the
great but the sole dominating influence. The ancient Bagdadians,
including those commuters and suburbanites, far and near, who came
cameling into town at more or less frequent intervals, did business, not
with a machine, not with a system, but with men. Which, being freely
translated, meant bargaining. They not merely bargained, but haggled,
and haggled at great length. Prices? There were none. The price was what
you made it--you and the merchant with whom you finally came to
agreement; if finally you did come to agreement.
In the great bazaars of the modern Bagdad one does not need to bargain
or to haggle. One is doing business primarily with a system. Prices are
fixed, and firmly fixed. This is so generally understood and accepted a
rule today that it would be a mere waste of time to discuss it at
further length, save possibly to recall once again the large part which
Rowland Hussey Macy and the men who followed him played in giving a
Gibraltar-like firmness to this solid modern business principle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account