CHAIN STORES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 20

CHAIN STORES

REPORT IN N.S.W.

PRAISE FOR VARIETY TYPE

METHOD AND QUALITY (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, July 25. . A recommendation that restrictions should be placed on the establishment of more branches of grocery chain stores, and praise for the manner in which variety chain stores conducted their businesses, were features of a report by Mr. Justice Browne, of the Industrial Commission, to the State; Government. bMr. Justice Browne's inquiry into chain-store trading lasted! more than two years. ;■

Mr. Justice Browne recommended the regulation of chain grocery stores by means of a licensing system, in order to protect the small grocer from this kind of competition. "The small independent grocer," he said, "is often hard put to it, especially in the suburbs and the country, where grocery chains have small shops, sometimes two or three in the same suburb or town. If chain stores were required to obtain a licence for each new branch opened, the appropriate department. .or an officer specially appointed, could recommend the refusal of a licence where the needs of the public were already adequately met."

The report directed attention to the dismissal from grocery stores of junior employees before they became entitled to a senior's wage. ''I must confess," Mr. Justice Browne stated, "I can see no effective remedy for this evil, but it certainly is an evil and a very serious one. The evil is not by any means limited to grocery chain stores, nor does it eifist at all in sonje of them." . VARIETY TRADING METHODS. Concluding his comments on variety chain stores and the service they render to "the public, Mr. Justice Browne said: "They succeed because they deserve success." "The trading methods of these stores, their treatment of their employees, and their business practices generally are honest and fair, and are pf at least as high a standard as those of retailers ' conducting" general department or other stores," he stated: "The success of those of the variety chains in New South Wales which have been a success is due not to any improper practices, nor to scurvy treatment of employees, but to brains, organisation, competence, and fair dealing, all of which have won the confidence of a very large section of the purchasing public. "In my opinion, neither the operations, management, purchasing practices, nor methods of any of the variety chain stores ai'e detrimental to the interests of the State, storekeepers, shopkeepers, manufacturers, producers, consumers, employees in- chain stores or any other trade, business, or industry, in producing (and I am satisfied that they do not produce) either undue straint of trade, unfair methods of trade competition, a diminution of trade, business, or employment, or ■ a lowering of the standard' of living. ELIMINATION OF WHOLESALERS. "The variety chain stores; dispense almost entirely with the Services of wholesalers, whom they apparently regard in existing circumstances as quite unnecessary 'middlemen.' In this they, are adopting no different policy from that followed by many of .the large general and department stores. In a sense, this cutting out of the wholesaler, and the making of direct business contact with manufacturers and other suppliers, has had a serious effect on many wholesalers. But it seems to me that the purchasing public has suffered no detriment —rather the reverse. Manufacturers, in the main, welcome the change, and since, ttje days of huge foreign imports have largely disappeared ,and our own secondary industries have developed, there seems to be less and less need for the wholesaler in lines handled by the variety chain stores." ' It was claimed during the inquiry that the stocking by the chain stores of clothing of poor quality and limited range would bring about an urideskv able standardisation of clothing, particularly undesirable by reason of the standard being a low one. "I cannot help feeling," Mr. Justice Browne commented in his report, "that this claim is really highbly fanciful, and is probably the result of much reading rather than of observation of Australian conditions. If standardisation is threatened at all, Hollywood is far more likely to be its source th^n the variety chain stores."