Page 182 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

candies will add to the total profits. There are few more attractive ways for
young and active men to get a start and accumulate capital during the open
season.

ARoadsideBookstore

A

N UNUSUAL business has been developed by J. C. Meredith, who operates
a roadside stand near Traverse City, Michigan. This roadside stand sells
neither hot dogs nor hamburgers, ice cream nor gasoline, but books. While
rare in this country, this type of bookshop or stall is common in Europe,
especially Paris. Mr. Meredith believes that the average person likes to
browse in a bookshop and that not even a tourist can resist the impulse to stop
and look over books and prints. A large sign over his stand states: “Why
hurry? You’ll enjoy visiting this roadside bookshop.”

chapter seVen
STOREKEEPING AS A BUSINESS
W

HEREVER you live there are plenty of ordinary stores. In most towns and
cities there are too many ordinary stores. Every week thousands of retail
storekeepers go bankrupt, are closed out and shut up, with losses varying
from $1,000 to $10,000 each. One Los Angeles wholesale house has one man
who does nothing but attend to closing up stores, the owners of which can’t
pay their merchandise bills.

Various reasons are given by the mercantile reporting agencies for the failure
of so many retail stores: Lack of capital, inexperience, credit losses, poor
management, bad locations. These are but a few of the reasons given. Yet
when you come right down to the final analysis, you will find that the chief
reason is because the storekeeper did not render a needed or useful service to
the community he served.

That should be your first thought in determining whether or not you want to