EMPIRE SHOPPING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 June 1930, Page 3

EMPIRE SHOPPING

THE BRITISH HOUSEWIFE PIIGFEKENCn VOil NEW ZEALAND a oo »s A TOUR BEUUND THE COUNTER (From a Woman Correspondent) LONDON, 2nd May. There is a certain document upon which the fate of the British Empire rests. Yet it is not concealed in secret; drawers or locked in safes. It. can be seen at almost any hour in every principal si reet in every town and village in the United Kingdom. It is the British housewife's shopping list. ■ What it its verdict? For on it hangs the prosperity of the Empire countries and tho fate of their citizens. lb is the list that launched a, thousand ships. In search of its secrets I have just visited a number of shops. Everywhere J found the same story. The sale of New Zealand and other Empire goods is going up steadily. In many cases it has doubled in the last three or four years. Women are taking more interest in the articles that New Zealand lias to offer—butter, for instance, and also cheese, honey and apples.

1 discovered three reasons for the rising tide of Empire buying. "The first—and often the only—thing that 99 per cent, of our customers consider," the manager of a grocery store told me, "is value for money. They insist on the best article at the lowest price. Housewives are buying more Empire goods because they are getting better and cheaper all tho time. "Take New Zealand butter, for instance. Our sales have doubled in the last four years. Now we sell two tons of New Zealand butter for every hundredweight of foreign. It is first class stuff at a fair price." "The British housewife is the most exacting in the world," I was informed by another grocery man who had spent his life in the trade. "She is the keenest shopper in five continents." The second reason why women are buying moro Empire goods is because the man that stocks the counter rules the world. That is to say, most women are really as clay in tho hands of the shop-assistant, who is an adept in the subtle art of selling customers vluit he wants them to buy. "Nine out of ten customers," one of them told me, "take, our advice. They want the best value for their :,.oney, and they depend on our help. We find that to tell a customer an article is 'Empire' is always a point in its favour."

CHEESE FOR THE HONEYMOON

, One old man I spoke to had been with tho big store for 27 years. In his early youth he had visited Australia. Next year he is due to retire, and he hopes "to realise an ambition he has been nursing for years. "I want to go back to Australia,'" he told me, "and see the great Sydney bridge. I've read about it, and it's'the finest engineering feat in the world. Most of the materials come from this country, and I've always thought that every pound of Australian sultanas or canned fruit I've sold may help them in Sydney to pay for it!" Women assistants, too, are Empire enthusiasts. I heard one attractive girl telling a customer about the virtues of Empire (as opposed to foreign cheese) with such enthusiasm, that I enquired what made her so keen. "My fiance's out in New Zealand." she replied, "and I reckon that the more New Zealand stuff we buy here, the better people outthere will get on and the sooner we can have our honeymoon." One enthusiastic Empire salesman I talked with had been an assistant for thirty years. He married on a pound a week, brought up a family, and now his eldest son is a Professor at an English University. But more often assistants are pushing goods not for personal reasons but because it is the policy of the store.' The managers and directors of many big stores have decided that Empire business is good business, and the word has gone forth to the army of assistants that "Empire first" is the watchword. Regular Empire weeks and all-Empire pricelists are now part- of the fixed policy of many of the big houses. A'live business man has always got his eye on new openings. He knows that itiie early bird catches the customer. And there is" no more outstanding feature of Empire business than the continual appearance of new "lines" and new opportunities.

Looking for new food is a fascinating game for customers, too. Almost every week a pioneer product makes its appearance, from some corner of the Empire. One of the newest, for instance, is orange-blossom honey from the scented groves of Jaffa, put up in attractive coloured jars.

JARS THAT SELL HONEY "One of the reasons women buy honey," a grocer told me, "is for the jars." Often pretty jars make good flower vase's, and I have had several customers come back to get the same kind of honey in order to get another vase to match." "A lady to whom I sold some bottled passion fruit the other day," an csaistant told me, "came back a day cr two later and complained that the fruit was too much trouble to eat. I found that she had spent several hours trying to pick out the seeds ! I pointed out that she didn't, pick the pips out of raspberries and she seemed quite surprised." The "Bright Young People" of London Society buying more, passion fruit, a new Empire line. The latest fashion, it seems, is to use them in cocktails. A craze for pickled onions in cocktails was. I was told, another recent fashion.

How do you cat corn on the cob? None of the" customers of one big store Juiew Ihe correct way, although there was a large sale for this Empire novelty. "The English arc. too genteel," said the shop assistant with whom I discussed the 'matter. "They won't beljeve mo when 1 'tell them that the right way to eat corn On the cob is to gnaw at the cobs, as if they were chicken bones. People just use forks and pick at the corn—but it isn't the correct way."

COFFEE CROSSES THE CHANNEL The third reason I discovered to account for tho growth of Empire buying was the spread of the travel habit. Travel breeds new habits in the travellers. I was told some interesting things by a man who had sold coffee over a counter in the Brompton road for 20 years. The spread of the coffee habit since the war, he said, was phenomenal. Before, it was confined to the wealthier classes; to-dav, in every kind of household, including many " of the very poorest, coffee has penetrated. Tins was mainly due, he thought, to the travel habit.' Thousands of tourists Hock (o the Continent evoiy summer. Tlie.v experience the lure of coffee and retain their laste when they get home. "We are selling three times as much coffee fo-day as we sold five years ago." my informant said, "largely

because so many moi'c customers have taken to coffee drinking. Empire coffee is getting most of this new business."

THE SALESMAN'S MISTAKE

Another Empire product whoso sales have everywhere gone up by leaps and bounds is Australian canned fruit. One shopkeeper I met was convinced thai, the Australian fruit was inferior to foreign because it wa.'-i poorly graded and lens lasiy. Times had changed, I suggested, and' pmiiap's that, no longer applied. Ho offered to prove- his case. "Fetch a tin of Australian and a tin of foreign peaches," he said to bis grocery manager. "Select them at random and turn them out on to plates so that 1 cannot know which is which." The peaches were brought and I was invited fo choose the best, plate of fruit, first for appearance and then for flavour. Tlie owner of the shop then, as an expert, made his selection. We both awarded the palm to the same plate of peaches. "Well, you see," said the owner, "those we're, the foreign peaches." But the grocery manager coughed discreetly, and said. "Pardon me. sir! Those were the Australian ones. We are selling more of them every day, for the price is the same." And the shopkeeper was surprised, but convinced.

"WHAT ABOUT THE MODERN CURL?" "What about the modern girl?" I asked a grocery expert. "Does she take an interest in Empire buying?" He smiled. "The modern girl," he replied, "buvs fewer raw materials and more finished articles. Her mother buys flour. raisins, and peel for home-made cakes, and all the ingredients for a Christmas pudding. When her daughter starts in housekeeping, she buys ready-made cakes, more canned food and Christmas puddings out of tins. Why, half these modern girls haven't even the least idea how to mix a Christmas pudding! "But such a lot, of girls take an inter, est in world affairs nowadays thatjthey often buy Empire goods on principle. Another 'thing; I believe the next generation will be great Empire shoppers. Often they know more than their mothers do about it! •

"We had an example of that the other day. All this season we stocked Empire eggs, but, supplies were short at the end of the season, so we got, in a case of foreign. This lady had always told her children that the Empire could supply all we wanted and that there was no need to go outside for our food. When she took home some foreign eggs the children spotted the stamp in no time and she had a. job to think up some good excuses. She asked us if we could rub tho stamp off so that she shouldn't, get into trouble with her children again !"

CALIFORNIA A COLONY? Some people have very hazy ideas about what countries belong to the Empire. A large number believe that the Union Jack waves over America's most advertised State. I was told a true story of a lady who went into a fruit shop and asked for some Australian apples. "Sorry, ma'am," said the assistant, "we don't stock them. Nothing but Empire produce sold here! Will you have some nice Californian apples?" The belief that California is part of the Empire is, I was told at all the shops I visited, amazingly prevalent. People in all walks of life share this illusion, and express great surprise when they hear that it is 100 per cent. Amelican.

On tin* whole, however, shop-keepers agreed that people were taking so much more interest in Empire buying that these misconceptions were gradually dying out. ,'..-.'