The Tyrant of the Counter.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XIII, 28 September 1901, Page 585

The Tyrant of the Counter.

The fashionable shopkeepers in the West End of London have been complaining that American visitors do not give them their custom. The fair Yankees, it appears, go to Paris to do their shopping. The reason for this, it is explained, is not that the French capital has other attractions, or even that its warehouses are better stocked, bnt that in Paris the shopmen allow one to do their own choosing, and, indeed, seem grateful for your ideas, whefeas in London it appears to be the proper thing oil the part of the shopmen to assume that the purchaser has no idea or taste of her own, and to undertake her education then and there. 1 am afraid that that failing is not confined to London shopmen only, but is shared by their brethren throughout the Empire. In the colony here 1 have frequently heard ladies complain of the officious shopman or shopwoman, who takes it for granted that he or she knows much better what you want and what will suit you than you do yourself. The poor male, as a rule, surrenders at once to the assertive tailor or hatter, or, mercer, who tells

him with an almost irresistible assurance which brooks no contradiitiomthat he knows precisely the thing that you want, it may be that your conscience tells you the suit Snips is measuring you for is not what you desire, or that the cut he insists on accords ill with the lines of your figure; it may be that the hut Smith has Bent you forth into the street with stakes you a guy; or that the tie foisted on you cries out on your taste. The chances are. if you a* the average man, that you will weekly go on your way clothed, hatted and tied by the tyrannous shopkeeper. Ladies are not by any means so unresisting. They do not accept without a murmur the shopman's dictum. They know that the fact that he happens to sell ribbons by the does not innke an artist of him: and he knows that they know it, for he will cheerfully spread his wares before them to choose when, were he dealing with a man, he would not go to a tithe that trouble. Still, even among the best of British shopmen, the tendency is to dictate to their customers. Ft is the tradition of the counter that the proper way to do business is to sell what you want to sell to your patron. Now, the success of the Paris and New York shopmen lies in this, that they seek to sell only what their patrons want to buy. And this difference of methods extends much further than the shops. Why is it that the British manufacturer is losing ground with his wares? Are we not repeatedly assured that it is because he will not make what his customers want.