“WILL BAN GOODS”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22511, 15 December 1947, Page 6

“WILL BAN GOODS”

PROFIT CUT THREAT BY TRADERS PRICE TRIBUNAL ACTION (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Dec. 13. Dissatisfaction with the margin of profit allowed by the Price Tribunal has resulted in some Auckland firms deciding no longer .to handle certain lines of merchandise. One company has circularised its customers announcing that it will no longer deal in shotgun cartridges. A second has issued a similar statement, with the qualification that it will drop this line unless a reasonable profit was allowed. A dealer in beekeepers’ supplies has advised clients that it will no longer stock beekeepers’ wooden ware and foundation wax. In a circular letter stating that until there is a reasonable margin of profit allowed by the Price Tribunal it will not stock or sell cartridges, one firm says that the present mark-up of 5 per cent, on the cost wholesale and 8i per cent, retail does not enable it to handle the line without showing a loss. It has been selling cartridges for over 57 years and regrets its decision to stop, but with the ever-increasing rises in overhead costs and the decreasing profit margins on many thousands of lines, it feels that it is only courting disaster if it continues -to handle uneconomical goods. ‘‘The margins of profit are very lean on many hardware lines and, in some cases, we have been trading more or less at a loss,” said a member of the Retail Hardware Association If the Price Tribunal cut margins so heavily, traders would not handle certain lines and shortages would develop. On barbed wire, for example, the profit on an £BO sale was only £6 and on one class of wire-netting the wholesaler made only 2s lOd for an outlay of £1 17s 3d. A recent questionnaire among members of the association had shown that the great majority were not satisfied with the mark-up on cartridges, considering that it should be 20 to 25 per cent. There was also dissatisfaction concerning the profit permitted on nails and on several other classes of goods.