COMMERCIAL NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 71, 24 March 1926, Page 15

COMMERCIAL NOTES

»■"" ■ PUBLICITY THAT PUI.LS

RETAILERS DO NOT AQVERTISE ENOUGH

(Prom Our Own Coirespond«nt.) LONDON, 26th January. The business advantages of publicity, combined with intelligent consideration for window dressing, were extolled in a speech delivered. by Sir Charles Higliam. . . "You retailers do not. advertise enough," he said. "You do not seem to understand that if newspaper advertising pays Barkers, IJarrods, and- Gelfridges, ■as it does, it will also pay you. You cannot expect the public to come to your shops and buy goods if you do not ask them to. It is pot what you pay for the space in a newspaper that wants to disturb you, it is what you put in it. If you believe in the goods you sell, advertise and,tell.the people of your. district; :Do ,not hope for people to come to your place of business, make certain of- it. Newspaper advertising is the only way I know of. "When the people get to your shop," be proceeded, "do-not let them imagine by looking in your window that you are unable to serve them well, due to the fact that either the' goods are dusty, or are so old-fashioned that they know you have had them for a long time. Press your window ofj;en. It is true it is a little trouble, but then you pay half your rent for your window. Do sot let the public decide they do not want the goods before you have had a chance to tell them how good they are inside your shop. Get them in, and then, have value for them when you get them in. Small profits and a quick turnover is the way to make a success of a business nowadays. The only way to get quick turnover in your business is to advertise. If you have ,a certain ljne of goods, and you think they are good value, you should tell your customers why you think they are, and why tjiey should buy them, and they will respond." COURAGE IN INDUSTRY. Sir William Clare Lees, a leader in the Lancashire bleaching industry, says that India -is producing 50 per cent, more raw cotton than before the war, and that Japan is using a great deal of it to supply the cloths which India, China, Japan, and the Asiastic countries* generally increasingly absorbed. He advises I/ancashive spinners and manufacturers' .to ' consider seriously whether they cannot use this Indian cotton and produce this lower type of goods. He says it would pay Lancashire to' take the coarser trade of the world for a while and keep its workpeople and mills employed, rather than to stand idle until the fine luxury demands of the world, picked up ag>in. He knew by experience as-a finisher that surprisingly good results could be obtained from such cotton. MONOMARKS AND BUSINESS. Mr. "William Morris, the originator of the monomark scheme, in a talk to business men said that, the scheme, •which had been submitted to a panel of actuaries, permitted of no duplication of monomarks. Fifty per cent, of British articles - made abroad bore no identification mark, .and consumers wishing to get mo?* goods of the type that met with their approval could repeat orders with ease under a. general monomark system. The monomarking was a sure linj? between buyer and seller, On« furniture firm had taken out thirty different monomarks in order to keep a cheek on widely varying brands of goods. The monomark, far from reducing advertising, would help it, because the schema would holp business by speedipg it up und. facilitating it,and therefore provide more money disposable for advertising goods in the open. - ; ■ FLEXIBLE GLASS. "Glass" that bends, bounces, and breaks without splintering :is to be manufactured in England in the near "future for use in motor-cars. It is the invention of two Austrian chemists. The new substance is as transparent as window glass, according to an expert of "The JMotor," and it is also claimed that it is non-inflammable. "It retains its water-clear appearance under all atmospheric conditions," says "The Motor." "It is sufficiently hard to be safe from accidental scratching, and yet is flexible enough to bend under stress .to a marked extent without fracture. It can be broken with the bare hands without risk, because the edges of. the fractures are not sharp, or jagged. A sheet of the new material is also only half the weight of a iheet; of glass corresponding in size and thickness." Resiliencytests were carried out with a email balfraade of the material. The ball was dropped from a height on a stone floor. It bounced back about the same height, and when thrown violently at the floor it bounced twenty feet in the air. "Wind-screens and windows of a motor-car made of the new material," adds the expert, "would have the transparency, whiteness, and durability of glajss, with a degree of flexibility which removes all danger from splinters or jagged fractures.'* ' ■ ■ . The secretary of the Institute of Patentees regards the discovery as onfe of the most important of recent inventions. "There has been a'sea-ch for many years for flexible glass," he said. '•The London County Council has for a long time been looking for such a glass for its tramears." It. is stated that the new glass can be produced aj; practically the same cost as ordinary glass. A NEW LEATHER FABRIC. The oft'i'epeated accusation that British brains in industry are not what they were seems to be in part rebutted by the invention of a young Scottish chemist who has not only found a process for regenerating leather waste, but has managed to.market the product in the U.S.A. The Federation of British industries says that, dceording to the description of its inventor, his process is " a means of regenerating leather and other substances, and the product is hardly distinguishable from •real leather and is about half the price of hides. It can take the place of leather for motor-car upholstery, furniture, trunks, bags, tennis racquet cases, golf bags, bookbinding, fancy goods, slippers, slip-1 per cases, and raincoats. Indeed, it is most effective when spread on silk. It can be used wherever leather is used and so nearly can hide be imitated that it is possible to use the two together. The canny inventor has not patented his process, preferring to keep it a secret known only to himself. The leather is'first ground into a finp '•■-■n-ri— --•■' any impurities are removed. To this is added .a small jUautiiy- ..... .. ..j----stanco which has the effect of binding the leather into a tough dough. This, together with the colouring mixtures, is milled until the whole becomes a homo> geneous mixture. It is then cjalandered on to a backing cloth which is of great strength. When it is added that it does not crack or scratch pnd is waterproof it is easy to see what vast commercial possibilities it possesses. And these are being rapidly realised, as in addition to orders from British fur* lushing manufacturers and motor firaa, an important order has bee-', secured from one of tho biggest motor manufacturing firms in the U.S.A. BRITISH FIRM'S WORLD-WIDE SUCCESS. How the building of one tiny prisnv of glass on another has enabled a British firm to win a "world-wide, market' for its products lies behind the 'announcement that by the contracts they'

have secured in the New Year the company hav 9 . brought the numtbeir li Bht™S system to 500 The new contracts are two for South Ameriea, one of 10,000 pieces for Santiago in Chile, ail a another of L°pnrFn eC- eS for Buenos A»res-*nd one of 3000 pieces for the borough of Hackney, representing « total value of several thousand pound* iterling. . These installations are in use jn no fewer than 17 different couutrios t?q I V > and ;tt 898 citit!S °f tho 11.5.A. alone. Th« contract for the lighting of the City of Milwaukee was eeoured at a value of £17,000. Street lighting u only 'one phase of the activities, which equally embrace shop, factory, street, ' and church lighting. The principle is the same in each case, i.,., « t he uge of a refractor m which the major portion'of the total hght from the lamp is intercepted by an integral glass bowl provided with annular refracting prisms which concentrate the lighting rays and transmit them through a protecting glass cover. By different applications of the .principle the light can be diffused, thrown this way or that, or reflected in any one of a thousand different ways, according to the requirements of the Fl '■ S? h<l olj factt"'y ) shop, or street wkwh is to be lighted, and in each case it is a different arrangement of the tiny prisms that do the trick.