Word: marketing
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...said Victor Grossi of Chicago's Grossi Bros. Home Appliances last week of the discounting business-which only a few years ago threatened to knock old-line retailers out of many a choice market. Since the war, the discounters have built a $5 billion business selling appliances and other hard goods 20% to 40% below list price. Now that the first bloom is over, theirs is no longer the no-overhead, no-service happy hunting ground that it used to be. Discounting is a rugged business, growing tougher each month...
Part of the discounters' troubles comes from a general slump in the appliance market. With overall sales down some 10% this year, many a discounter, depending on high volume to make his cut-rate prices pay off, is in dire straits. Chicago's Grossi Bros, cites manufacturers' reports that factory sales of automatic washers are down 28%, conventional washers 32%, electric dryers 44%, refrigerators 20%, dishwashers 32%, stoves 32%. Another worry is increasing competition from conventional retailers who, instead of sitting back, cut prices right and left. St. Louis' Famous-Barr Co. has been matching discount...
...need to grow, but their smaller brothers do not. Traditionally, the discounters' main credit source has been manufacturers' wholesale distributors, who "carried" discounters through periodic slow periods. Even if the discounter failed, the distributor could rationalize his own loss as advertising for the products. The sagging appliance market has tightened that credit source just when shoestring discounters need it most. For small operators, vainly trying to wrap packages, and make deliveries and give credit to today's tougher customer, the added cost often spells ruin. Says Dun & Bradstreet: "You can't sell at 5% above cost...
...percentage is growing. Partly, the shift is due to widening public ownership of U.S. business. As companies grow bigger and more competitive, the day of the tightly held family corporation is fast disappearing. Says Cleveland Management Consultant Robert Heller: "As companies expand, they have to go into the market for money and then must bring in outside directors to represent the public...
...usual the Western Hemisphere attracted the most dollars-$1.8 billion-yet Europe got $500 million in new investments, will probably get more this year as U.S. companies hurry to build plants in expectation of a tariff-free Common European Market...