Page 70 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

A “Killing” on Carded Merchandise

W

HILE talking with a customer about his regular line, Carl O’Neil, a cigar
salesman, got an idea which enabled him to earn better than $1,000 within
nine weeks! Just as the storekeeper stopped talking with O’Neil, a young man
entered the store. The cigar stand proprietor asked him what he wanted. The
young fellow took two display cards of five-and ten-cent merchandise from a
sample case, and showed them to the cigar man. “There’s 120 per cent profit
on this card for you,” said the newcomer, “these carded products sell
themselves.” One card was filled with envelopes containing aspirin, and the
other had packages of razor blades attached. The lithographed cards invited
the store patrons to serve themselves. There wasn’t much of a sales talk
needed to show the store man the advantage of an open display from which a
customer could take small items without bothering a clerk. In less than two
minutes, the cigar man bought one of each of the cards, paid the young
salesman and returned to O’Neil who had been listening meanwhile. When
the other salesman left, O’Neil made note of the name and address of the
manufacturer of the carded products from the card left with the cigar man,
and that night wrote a letter inquiring about the possibility of selling carded
items as a side line.

“I got the connection right away,” said O’Neil, “bought a few cards to carry
with me, and decided to introduce them to my regular cigar dealers. Being
acquainted with every cigar man in my county, I was sure I could make extra
money which I badly needed. I had no trouble selling my first twenty-five
cards, and reordered twenty-five more. The goods sold themselves from the
cards in a store when they were displayed in the proper place.

“Usually I placed the cards where I knew they would attract attention.
Sometimes the store man moved the cards around, however, and would
complain that the merchandise didn’t sell. Others said they had carried such
merchandise, but hadn’t been able to do much with it, and refused to buy.
This complaint was pretty general for my first two weeks and held down my
sales. But wherever the store man left my cards in a good spot in the store he