BASEMENT STORES FOR THRIFTY CUSTOMERS 8g
In every basement store which I have had a chance to
study, it has been without exception true that those organized
under scientific planning—which forced the men in charge
to use facts instead of opinion in their merchandising—made
great successes, selling more and more goods.
Basement stores are not intended, of course, primarily for
competition with the main store. But when properly organ-
ized with their own corps of buyers, they do compete to a
greater degree than is often intended or understood by the
owners themselves. If such competition is studied and the
value of it is realized, then it can be turned into an asset very
valuable for the long-pull total net profits of the store.
Each part will stimulate the other, and in competition the
two parts will do more quickly and definitely and profitably
what the outside competitor forces us to do eventually for
our store. Time is one of the basic elements of profit in
merchandising.}
As an illustration of the effect of internal competition, I
might quote from the experience of the Filene store in Boston.
In its fiscal year 1919 to 1920 the bargain basement men’s
clothing department did a business of about a quarter of a
million dollars. During that year a building two doors
away came into the store’s ownership before it could be
utilized for the purpose for which it had been acquired. So
it was used temporarily as a bargain annex run on the base-
ment plan, with a men’s clothing department. Within a
short time the men’s clothing department in the basement
more than doubled its sales volume and did a business of
over a half-million dollars for the year, while the similar
department in the annex (handling the same general type
of merchandise) also did a business of a half-million dollars.
Advertising a basement store must be along lines somewhat
different from advertising the three full lines of a Model
Stock. Since the basement is concerned primarily with
values and prices, and to a far less extent with complete
stocks, the emphasis in the advertising will, of course, be
1 The advantages of internal competition are explained in detail in Chap.
XI, p. 161.
