Automatic Age

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those products which are satisfactory
fo r sale by machine.
A broad classification o f merchan­
dise which is well suited fo r auto­
matic retailing is, accordingly, as
follow s:
First, all the vast conglomeration
o f merchandise which has to be sold,
is unsuited to mechanical distribution
because a machine cannot sell; it can
only give out merchand:se in ex­
change fo r money paid in. Included
are all those items which have to be
explained to a customer, such as a
patent can-opener or a new form o f
cap fo r milk bottles. True, through
their advertising display, machines
may be s&'d to “ sell” in a sense, just
ay displays'in W oolw orth stores sell
rather more than the clerks. Machines
must be regarded, however, essen­
tially as order-takers, not as true
automatic salesmen. W here sales­
manship is required to “ put over” a
d q a l,th e sales-mach:ne is impotent.
, Second, there is all that merchan­
dise which comes in a variety o f
sizes, styles, colors, patterns, models,
etp. Examples are ; to ck :ngs, collars,
neck,tjesf buttons and ribbons. Tt is
amazing, how frequently some br young merchand ser visions a fortune
in the selling o f wom en’s rt^ckings
automatically, but even if the busi­
ness' i.i narrowred down to one color,
quality ' and price, the unavoidable
necessity to give variety in size is
alone sufficient to render it imprac­
ticable. For, o f course, each selection
means a separate machinc— an added
investment, just that much more to
maintain and to service— to say noth­
ing of; the extra space required fo r
the in. tallation. If sufficient volume
can be attained from one or two
items out o f a group, the question is
altered.' F or instance, Kodak films
come in large variety; the greet bulk
o f sales, however, is done in two
sizes, and there is no apparent rea­
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A
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son why these two should not be
automatically retailed with success.
Third, bulky merchandise is not
practicable fo r machine sale.
The
larger the product being sold, the
larger the machine required to sell it.
Probably no one would think o f ma­
chines to sell trunks, yet the idea has
been seriously advanced o f selling
bags o f potatoes in machines placed
at convenient intervals along our
highways! As capacity is o f extreme
importance and yet the size o f the
machine must be kept within reason,
the package itself should be as small
as possible.
Fourth, only low-priced merchan­
dise is suitable fo r automatic sale.
Coins are the only money which will
operate machines. The largest coin,
50 cents, is not ordinarily carried
by enough people to enable half­
dollar machines to pay. The effective
price range in automatic retailing is,
accordingly, from 1 to 25 cents.
There is another consideration which
tends to narrow it still further.
Certain simple slugs will operate any
sales-machine in existence. It hardly
pays fo r the trouble to make 1 cent,
or even 5-cent slugs; but it becomes
distinctly worth while in the eyes o f
the unscrupulous to hack out slugs
that will yield 10, 25 or 50-cent mer­
chandise. I f gasoline were sold auto­
matically as has often been suggest­
ed, far more people than is generally
suspected, would pay fo r it only in
slugs made by themselves— or bought
at the corner store, such as good-
luck pieces, metal tags, markers —
yea, even religious tokens! Devices
are being developed which will reject
all slugs but since they are still
somewhat in the experimental stage,
it will be some time before they
come into general commercial use. It
is also well to remember that the
more the coins which go into ma­
chines are worlh, the greater the
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