YOU HAVE TO SELL WHAT BUYERS WANT

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25902, 7 September 1949, Page 4

YOU HAVE TO SELL WHAT BUYERS WANT

MARKET STUDY

(Specially Written for "The Press.")

[By

HELEN GARRETT]

Britain must increase her exports to the highly competitLve markets of the dollar area. Some think that she will never be able to do this because .of her high production costs. However, not only , high production costs, but a lack of imagination in merchandising and a rather obstinate refusal to meet the customer’s needs and tastes often stand in Britain’s way. This deficiency goes back to well before the war. and is in no way connected with Britain’s present Government and its experiments in socialisation. I can illustrate it oy two incidents within my own experience, which show how Britain often has valuable .customers, willing and eager to take her goods because, for political reasons, they admire and respect Britain: yet.' when the goods arrive, they are disappointed.

In Holland, during the first vear of the war, I was working for the British Consulate in Rotterdam. At the time England had imposed a blockade on Germany, and would not allow the Dutch to export goods which were of more than 25 per cent. German “origin or interest.” This meant, of course, that Dutch manufacturers had to cut out many of their imports from Germany and seek elsewhere the raw materials which were to go into the manufacture of goods for export. Now the Dutch were officially “neutral”; but the great majority of them were strongly behind England, and their businessmen naturally wished to give England the custom which the blockade had forced them to take away from Germany. They knew that in some lines in which Germany had been pre-eminent, such as dyes. England could not .hope to compete, but they were content to take the best she had to offer in this or any other line. So they would write to English firms, only to find that their specifications could not be met and. moreover, would not be met.. The English exporter, accustomed to finding a sufficiently satisfactory market at home and in the Dominions and colonies—and a docile market which would take his designs and accept his standards of convenience or finish without question—tended to think that what was good enough for him was good enough for the Dutchman, or the Portuguese, or whoever it might be. He was not going to put himself out unduly to meet the requirements of some foreigner who did not know what was what, anyway. Conservative Methods

I presume this attitude on the part of the English business-man is the result of the long period of English trade hegemony in the nineteenth century. As an industrial nation. England got a head-start on everybody else; and after that it was all plain sailing, in spite of the quick growth of America, Germany, and later Japan as great industrial nations with growing export markets. Perhaps, too. the Englishman sometimes tends to feel that trade is rather vulgar; l.e certainly does not throw himself into it with the vigour and imagination of the American salesman. At any rate, the Dutch merchant did not get exactly what he wanted, nor as much as he ordered sometimes; nor did he get his orders filled very promptly. He would put in a mild complaint to the British Con-

sulate. which would be passed on to the Board of Trade in England. Similar complaints must have been coming from all over the world from British Consulates and Trade Commissioners. But perhaps the Board of Trade was itself conservative and lacking in imagination in dealing with the needs of foreigners; or perhaps it was—and still, is—a long and difficult business to persuade British exporters to change their ways and habits m mind. Shortly after I left Holland —when the Germans invaded the country—l went to Canada and found a disturbingly similar situation in the Canadian attitude to British exports. England was at war with Germany and Canada was her ally. America was not yet in the war. The Canadians, therefore, like the Dutchmen, wished for reasons political and sentimental to do more trade with England. One day I went to the dentist, and he talked about the general discontent that was felt about some British exports. He showed me some German dental instruments and demonstrated how handy they were and exactly suited to their purpose. Of course. German instruments were no longer available; but the Americans produced articles almost as good and certainly as handy. The British articles, on the contrary, though of good quality, just lacked that little bit of handiness he had been used to. They were what the British dentists used, what the New Zealand. Australian, and colonial dentists used perhaps, but not exactly what he wanted or had been accustomed to. So this Canadian dentist shrugged his shoulders and bought American instruments instead. He probably still is buying American, but could easily bo persuaded to keep his Canadian dollars within the Empire if British manufacturers would give his requirements the detailed and imaginative attention he expects. Too Much and Too Little It is obvious that the American and Canadian markets need to be studied. Their tastes cannot be dictated from London, Birmingham, or Sheffield. American women want different clothes from Englishwomen, clothes to suit their centrally-heated houses (not long-sleeved heavy woollen frocks, closed at the wrists, for instance), clothes that are not necessarily of very high quality or very well finished but clothes that are smart, dramatic, and good for one season only. Into some articles the English exporter puts more quality than the market demands; into others he does not put enough quality. Books from England, for example, are often of very poor quality these days, and must meet hard competition on the Canadian market from American books. In every case, the English exporter will only be able to compete if he starts with the idea that the customer is always right in what he wants, even if his notions seem exotic, vulgar, finicky—or merely foreign. Unfortunately, the world is not a well-bred little’island but a jungle of competing countries, each trying to outsell the other. And competition—when it is free competition —is not in itself a bad thing; the consumer always benefits by it. and goodwill grows on both sides of the counter when satisfaction is given.