Word: retailing
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Another promising sign was the long overdue beginning of a down-creep in retail prices. General Electric Co. dropped "Fair Trade" pricefixing on small appliances, and rival manufacturers promptly followed along (see BUSINESS). That much-mourned casualty of inflation, the 5? cup of coffee, made a comeback in Los Angeles restaurants. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that its consumer price index crept upward again in January, but the increase was largely the result of Florida's disastrous winter, which sharply upped fruit and vegetable prices. And the index only faintly reflected the discounts, trade-in allowances and bargain...
...labor unions would' quit pushing for a new round of wage boosts while the economy is drooping, retail prices might well decline far enough to stir plenty of consumer interest. In Manhattan, where the end of "Fair Trade" pricing on appliances brought a hot price-cutting war, housewives showed a frantic, elbowing eagerness to spend money for toasters, irons, rotisseries, clock radios...
...WHEN General Electric gave up Fair Trade and minimum-fixed prices for its wares last week (see Retail Trade), it belatedly recognized a basic fact of modern U.S. retailing. Nobody, or practically nobody, pays list price any more-for appliances, or for autos, furniture, cameras, jewelry, even baby buggies. As one Milwaukee retailer says: "The price tag on my merchandise means nothing...
While no one knows the percentage of total retail sales at cut-rates, merchandisers estimate that 90% of all small appliances are sold below list price, and say that cut-rate sales in other lines are growing fast. Several million young families, whose homes are from 75% to 90% stocked with possessions bought lower-than-list, buy no other way. Thus, while economists worry about the seeming paradox of price rises in the face of a general economic decline, the fact is that the prices contained in the rising Consumer Price Index are not what people really pay. Auto prices...
CHEAPER AUTO LOANS are expected. As a start, to finance inventories, big lenders have lopped ½% to 1% off loans to dealers: General Motors Acceptance Corp. rates are down to 4½%; C.I.T. Financial Corp.'s to 5½%. Result: dealers' operating costs are lower, and retail buyers may drive harder bargains...