Five Dollars Starts Stamp Exchange

 Five Dollars Starts Stamp Exchange 

    WHEN James Wallen was graduated from high school, he went out to look for a job, but jobs were scarce. So he decided to go into business for himself. Rummaging around in the attic, he found in an old trunk a letter addressed to his mother. The letter was written back in 1870. The envelope bore a two cent black stamp with a portrait of Andrew Jackson on it. He took the envelope (known to philatelists as a cover) to a stamp dealer and sold it for $5.00. With the money thus secured Jimmy purchased a Scott’s stamp catalog and three packages containing about three thousand mixed “missionary” stamps —that is stamps sent in to dealers by church missionaries from all over the world. Jimmy had long been interested in history and geography and found the stamps held a great fascination for him. He conceived the idea of selecting one particular stamp and finding out everything he could about it. He wrote an interesting story about the man on the stamp. He then went to the history teacher in the local school and sold her the idea of using stamps to teach history. In that way he started a stamp “craze.” Jimmy tied in with the “fad” by getting five students to act as his agents to sell stamps to other boys. He went to a printer and had stationery and approval sheets printed with his name. It wasn’t long before he had turned a large portion of the original three thousand stamps at a nice profit. With this money he purchased a larger supply from a wholesale stamp house in Boston. He began putting up small packets of especially sorted stamps which he sold through several stores in town on a consignment basis. When these assortments failed to move fast enough, he changed them about until they did sell. Jimmy now sends stamps to all parts of the country and a number of foreign countries. The number of his boy agents in near-by towns is constantly increasing. He has made his first thousand dollars and is on the way to his second thousand. 

A “Killing” on Carded Merchandise 

   WHILE 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 sold a lot of this merchandise. That got me thinking. I couldn’t force a store man to keep my card where I wanted it. But if I knew enough about displays, I could teach him to leave it where I put it. I studied store displays. A good place to put the card is close to the cash register. Another good place is on the top of the glass display case in which the low-priced cigars are kept. I told this to my customers and figured out for them in dollars and cents exactly what the value of this space was to them when they displayed my merchandise. The results were surprising to me. In less than a week most of my customers ordered additional cards and told me to place them where I thought they would do the most good.” O’Neil did so well that soon he gave up selling cigars and concentrated on the sale of carded merchandise. Loading his car with fifty cards each morning, he drove through the country, established regular routes, and placed cards with every kind of store. He makes ninety calls a day, and sells an average of one card for each two calls. His profit is never less than twelve dollars daily. During one stretch of nine weeks, he worked intensively on a plan to get merchants to display three cards where they had been displaying one and his commissions for the period were $1,019.20. Inexperienced salesmen who do not relish house-to-house selling, may find calling on stores with carded merchandise unusually profitable. Cigar stands, drug stores, grocery stores, bus stations, railway stations, magazine stands, hotels, and restaurants offer a ready outlet for carded merchandise.