NATIONAL PECULIARITIES IN BUYING.

Evening Post, Volume XL, Issue 11, 12 July 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

NATIONAL PECULIARITIES IN BUYING.

Talking of the sale of jewellery, a ) Frenchman says that as a purchaser 3 the American stands pre-eminently first in favour. He has three first- " -rate qualities — he goes straight to i what he wants, he pays cash down, : and he never bargains. One day a leading jeweller had r the pleasure of selling a necklace to - an American for six hundred thousand francs for money down cm I Oho counter, without being asked for > the smallest discount or reduction — i how much he would have given had • he been asked, the Parisian trades- [ man does not say. - ' i Next to the American comes the ) Russian, who . makes very large purchases, but not quite in so reck- • less a manner; then the Spaniard E and then the Britisher, who, we • should have thought, would have r been placed third. The other ) nations suffer by comparision. i The German, no doubt, has not , much cash left after a series of military budgets; the Dutchman is ' too frugal, and the Italian is too i much accustomed to bargain, re- > garding a discount of fifty per cent. l as in the natural course of things at ' home. i But even the Italian is welcome i in comparison with the Frenchman from the country. The provincial, y even when rolling in moneys will > avoid the great establishments and l seek the small ones which cannot , afford to send a customer away. He , will drive outrageously hard bargains, n and will go away and return day after day until the tradesman will let him have what he wants at almost . any price to get rid of him. The American without vanity, or the Britisher who dislikes trouble, . would evidently do well to employ a Frenchman from the country, even. at a heavy percentage, to do his i bargaining. i **~ **~ * — ~ |^—— ~~ — —