"CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1944, Page 4

"CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT"

With some reason the president of the* New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation has commended manufacturers and workers "for the very fine range of goods which was available at Christmas and which has been available since the beginning of the war." Some people, with memories of their Christmas shopping search still vivid, will not second this commendation,

but they should remember , that it is made with a big qualification: "taking into account difficulties of raw material supplies and of man-power." This makes all the difference. If due allowance is made for these difficulties it must be conceded that great advances have been made and that, by comparison with other countries where factory industry is more highly developed, New Zealand's fifth war Christmas shops were well furnished. There were gaps, however, as the president noted: "in a few isolated cases quality may not have been the best." These were not altogether in luxury lines, and it is as well to face that fact. The achievements of factory production have, in many directions, been notable and they will not suffer by a frank admission of shortcomings. Indeed, it is desirable, for the reputation of the efficient manufacturers, that they should not attempt to excuse those who fail to come up to standard. Rather, they should lend their knowledge and experience to the effort to expose these weaknesses. and remedy them. Otherwise the reputation of secondary industry as a whole will suffer. In seeking for remedies, however, the manufacturers are not the only people with responsibility. We have had so much control that buyers are forgetting the power that lies in their own hands. An old saying in the retail trade— "The . customer is always right"— exactly expresses this. The seller is always subject to the will of the buyer. Even wartime shortages of goods do not alter this—though they qualify. We refer to some goods and services as "necessaries" and say we must buy them, whatever the price and quality. But if we try it is surprising what we can do without and, where we cannot entirely do without, we can buy less. Mr. Lan Horrobin, a leading opponent of controlled marketing, bases his opposition largely on the plea that public buying or abstention from buying is much more effective as a corrective for inefficiency in industry or trade, and that too much planning and control tends to hinder the use of this method. It is possible that this is so in New Zealand and that if people who complain of prices or quality would say "No" more often they would find they have a way of reducing unreasonably high prices and encouraging quality production. But, of course, in wartime it would call for greater self-denial than when the volume of goods is ample and competition is keen.