BASEMENT STORES FOR THRIFTY CUSTOMERS 95
men’s suits in 30 minutes; 60,000 pairs of men’s, women’s,
and children’s shoes at $1 in about 2 weeks; 21,384 pairs
of women’s full-fashioned silk stockings in a day; 5,132
women’s hats in a day; and so on through a long list.
The prices had to be extraordinarily low in order to make
such records. That is just the point. The plan forces low
prices, but they are profitable prices.
Goods for the basement are bought almost exclusively
from stores going out of business or from manufacturers,
jobbers, and importers who are overstocked or have a sur-
plus. They need the cash, or have overestimated demand,
or in some other way have failed to coordinate their manu-
facturing and selling programs. The Filene Automatic
Bargain Basement is known to be always ready to buy these
surpluses if they are desirable from the customer’s
standpoint.
The basement also deals in seconds. However, it is a
hard and fast rule that no seconds shall be carried unless the
imperfections are of such a nature that they do not affect
the wearing qualities and the service which the article will
give. All seconds must be clearly so marked, or, if that is
not feasible, the word “seconds” must be displayed on a
sign placed on the counter so conspicuously that every cus-
tomer will see it.
The basement deals also in discontinued styles, which
have a great demand from those people who place a greater
value upon serviceability at low cost than upon style.
When the plan was first announced in 1909, it was inevita-
ble that some people would doubt the announced intention
of taking the reductions in exactly the manner described.
To overcome this doubt, and to make doubly sure of making
the reductions, the store offered a cash prize to anybody who
would call attention to an instance in which a reduction had
not been marked at the time called for by the schedule.
A good many of these prizes have been paid. Still, in
every instance the error was traceable to oversight, not to
any basic flaw in the plan nor to any intention to violate it.
So far as is known, not a day has passed since the opening
