PUBLICITY THAT BEATS COMPETITION 173 
in building goodwill, in teaching customers that it pays them 
to go past other stores to trade with us. We know that 
goodwill is so valuable that it can ordinarily be sold at a 
greater price than all the tangible assets of a going business. 
The reason it is so valuable is, of course, that goodwill makes 
it possible to earn total profits far in excess of ordinary 
interest on the investment in business and it does this by 
bringing in customers for the goods that are not advertised. 
All the foregoing simply means that whatever advertising 
we do, even of special lots, results in placing the emphasis 
both directly and indirectly on the merchandising method that 
offers our customers every article in stock al such good values, 
such general excellence of style and quality, in such complete 
assortments. 
But what of the customer who regularly does the bulk of 
her shopping at another store, or at other stores? 
Sooner or later she is unable to find in her favorite store or 
stores some article which she distinctly desires. If our adver- 
tising has been handled well, she will think of our store; she 
is familiar with our claims that we carry the most complete 
stocks at the lowest prices. When she comes to our store, 
she finds conditions exactly as we have represented them in 
our advertisements. She finds complete assortments at the 
prices she is willing to pay, more complete assortments than 
she has ever thought she could possibly find in any store. 
Very probably we succeed in adding her then and there to our 
group of regular customers. But if not. we shall eventually 
get her trade, for she will repeat the occurrence often enough, 
through the failure of our competitors to meet her needs, so 
that experience will convince her. 
Of course, our advertising and our merchandising methods 
are not going to bring us all the retail trade in our city. 
Many customers will be attracted by advertisements of our 
competitors. And when they come to the retail district to 
shop at competitors’ stores, their routes will lead many 
of them past our store. Here we have one more opportunity 
to impress them with the desirability of our stocks; our win- 
dow displays are our publicity tool for this purpose.