“TURNING THE CORNER”

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1930, Page 3

“TURNING THE CORNER”

TRADE IN ENGLAND. BUSINESS MAN’S. VIEWS. „ The suggestion that trade in the North of England had turned the corner was made by Mr. H. T. Atkinson, of Sheffield, the chairman, at >a conference of the Northern Council of the Incorporated Association of Retail Distributor?. Mr. Atkinson said the .trade of the North had been very much affected for seven or eight years, and during the last IS months very acutely. There were any amount of causes for this, but one very important factor was the raising of the assessment values in all the cities, and particularly in the shopping areas. He thought that this was a problem which would occupy a lot of thought in tho future, coupled with the fact that many of their grading values and values of commodities were going down, while in many cases establishment charges were going up. “It will be a real problem for some of us to tackle in the future, but L think we have turned the corner and have seen the worst,” said Mr. Atkinson. “There are distinct signs in many quarters of world trade improvement. 1 trust we can look forward to getting our share in this part of the country and that we shall see again many of our cities the throbbing hives they were in the past.” Mr. J. B. Forsyth (Bradford) opened a discussion on merchandise control and recommended the adoption of a system of detailed classification of stocks which would enable the manager of a store effectively to control the operations df individual departments. In a technical discussion on factors operating to control the buying and selling of goods Mr. Forsyth mentioned the use of coloured cards, which, he said, were used in America to such an extent that different sizes were plainly denoted by different coloured tickets, so that a girl .seeing a costume hanging in a window would know at once by the colour of its fittings whether or not it was her size.