Department Store Planning Self-Service Marketing

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28766, 11 December 1958, Page 25

Department Store Planning Self-Service Marketing

Introduction of self-service by customers in large retail department stores is planned by a Dunedin company with five large shops in South Island towns. The managing director of the company, Mr Charles Butterfield, said in Christchurch his organisation would fall into line with overseas trends to self-ser-vice marketing. It would begin with a pilot scheme to study customer reaction in one of its Dunedin store departments and then, after learning local requirements, would expand. Mr Butterfield returned to New Zealand this week after visiting the United States, Britain, and Europe for seven months, his third overseas trip to study furniture manufacturing and retail practice since 1951. He said the department store self-service innovation overseas was similar to the familiar chain store self-service but was for products usually handled by salesmen behind counters. Customers, under the new system, would serve themselves with ffieir own manchester, small

home appliances and other goods which would be displayed on tables and taken to a wrapping desk. •’We have been toying with the i self-service idea for three or so , years and we certainly will be cracking ahead on it, Mr Butter- : field said. “It is in vogue to a limited extent up north, but i nowhere in the Dominion to any • big degree.” System Overseas In the United States and Australia, and in one or two places in New Zealand, the chain stores r were eliminating spaces in the I middle of and behind counters I tor sales staff, but his organisa- » tion’s idea for furniture and asso- • dated products self-service would I probably be the first in operation in its field in New Zealand. ! Mr Butterfield said that he had i been interested to find a shoe i store in London laid out for self- • service. Customers inspected the r range of footwear on individual wall shelves and having selected . the type they wanted indicated i it to a salesman who obtained the correct size. Mr Butterfield said that, in his opinion, English department stores were far ahead of those in the United States, but the “best anywhere” were those in Sydney