Bay of Plenty Times. EVENING DAILY THURSDAY JANUARY 23rd. 1930 CHAIN STORE SYSTEM.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11930, 23 January 1936, Page 2

Bay of Plenty Times. EVENING DAILY THURSDAY JANUARY 23rd. 1930 CHAIN STORE SYSTEM.

Periodically chain store aud multiple shops come in lor condemnation mainly Irom vested iueresfs but nevertheless these stores continue to operate. The business people of IV ban pa re i last week started a movement which the ptomotors hope will become Domin-ion-wide. At a meeting on Friday last a motion viewing with concern the continued growth of chain and multiple shops throughout the Dominion, and the menace they create to the well-being of a large body of retailers with whom they come into unfair trading competition, to the detriment in the final result of the taxpayers as a whole, was carried, and no doubt the promoters and those who attended the meeting were quite sincere in their condemnation.

The meeting expressed alarm at the continued growth of the chain stores, and that emboldens us to ask why they continue to grow.’ Chain stores cannot grow from within. They may provide a great variety of merchandise, but unless the mass of the people purchase the merchandise the chain stores would go out of business. It is obvious that they are patronised by the people because they fill an important niche in the economic life of the community. Naturally they come into competition with other retailers, but the position that must be faced is that if we abolish them in the form in which we now know them they will most assuredly arise in some other form more difficult for the individual retailer to combat or compete with. If debarred from operating presumably retail prices would rise, and that patronage which the opponents of the chain store seek to create or secure themselves would unquestionably be alienated. If the chain si ores did not make a profit, they would soon collapse, but they continue to expand, which shows that they are earning profits even on their low prices. The chain stores are really engaged in mass distribution, as a counterpart to mass production. We hold no brief for the chain stores and multiple shops, but we can see in them a great development in trading methods and that being so it seems futile to endeavour to have them suppressed by legislation. That retailers generally can face up to the competition is evidenced by the fact that they do continue to exist and make profits. On strict analysis one is forced to the conclusion that those retailers who are agitating against the chain stores in their search for belter business imagine the fault to be with the chain store, whereas as a matter of fact practically every city and town in New Zealand is overshopped. For that we can suggest no remedy. The only governing factor would seem to be the number of shops available.