Word: neckermann
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Another of the additions this year is meat. The smallest quantity sold is 30 lbs. of stewing beef, but prices are 30% to 40% below normal. Thus the customer has a powerful incentive to buy a freezer-which Neckermann supplies for $100 in cash or $4.50 a month...
Born in Würzburg, Neckermann worked in Berlin during the Nazi era, acquired for a bargain price a textile mail-order house belonging to a Jew who was forced to sell and flee. Neckermann joined the Nazi Party, did well selling uniforms to Hitler's armies during World War II. After V-E day, the Allies confiscated Neckermann's property and put him in jail for a year. He kept up his textile contacts and in 1950 set up business in a rented barracks at a refugee camp, where labor was especially cheap...
Breaking Boycotts. His success was so striking that in 1951 members of the German Association of Textile Wholesalers and Retailers met and agreed to boycott his suppliers. Neckermann sued, collected damages and broke the boycott. Then he began selling a quality radio for $45, when comparable sets were $75. He did the same with refrigerators, washing machines and TV sets. Again competitors moved to block Neckermann, each time helping to publicize his wares and prices. They did not stop him from getting supplies, but they did get repairmen to boycott Neckermann goods-with the result that Neckermann...
...price of a handkerchief. Just about his only diversion is horseback riding, which he does so well that he won the world dressage championship in Bern last summer. Although the firm's shares are sold publicly-and will be listed this week on German stock exchanges-Neckermann and his family own 51.8% of the stock, and there are no other big shareholders...
...Neckermann warmly acknowledges his debt to Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, and indeed his catalogue could almost serve for Sears. "We do belatedly what the Americans are doing," he says. But he has also been imaginative. This fall Neckermann is offering Scandinavian pastel mink coats for $1,175, much less than the usual price, has already sold "several thousand." Last year Neckermann established his own travel service, and it is already the biggest air-charter-tour outfit in West Germany. He is offering, for instance, 17 days in India for $400 tourist class and $635 for "special maharajah service...