Farmers’ clips grouped together

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32885, 7 April 1972, Page 13

Farmers’ clips grouped together

The Wellington wool sale last week was used as a trial of a new system of sample selling aimed at increasing the size of lots.

Brokers grouped together as many as three or four different clips of similar type and sold them as one lot. Buyers inspected a small five kilogram sample supported by objective measurement data showing the yield (or clean wool content) and fibre diameter where this was applicable. The buyer did not value the actual bales, as is usual, but relied on the sample which was representatively drawn from the whole line. The 109 lots totalling some 3200 bales were sold from one combined catalogue. All the wool was displayed at one store, although individual brokers prepared their own section of the catalogue. Brokers received the consent of their fanner clients to undertake the experiment, which had the support of the New Zealand Wool Commission. “While the trial was designed to test the technical acceptance by the trade of this form of sample selling, particularly the ’marrying’ of clips and then sale by a small sample, it also represented a major step forward in the rationalisation of the services offered by the woolbroking companies.” commented Mr N. O. Thomas, general manager of the New Zealand Woolbrokers’ Association. “Scoured wool has been

sold in Napier and Timaru on a combined catalogue basis, but this was the first time greasy wool had been handled in this way.” Mr Thomas said future wool displays could well concentrate on a combination of two methods: Single bale showing, particularly for wool requiring sorting in a broker’s store. The combined clip presentation with a small display sample. He said one of the major problems of any sample selling system was the development of a mechanical sampling machine. The Wellington trial samples

were gathered by hand Brokers were experimenting with a spear and grab-like instrument along lines similar to one developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. In the accompanying photograph, from left to right, Mr Thomas, Mr D. K. McDonald, of the New Zealand Woolbuyers’ Association, and Mr J. B. Donaldson, wool manager of the New Zealand Cooperative Distributing Company, inspect some of the sample wool before the Wellington sale. The old method of stacking wool for valuation can be seen in the background (the caps have to be removed).