Protection For Retailers

A novel idea has been presented to the English trade to meet the competition from manufacturera who have stores for retailing their own goods. It is proposed to fonn a company with a capital stock of $100,000. This company will pay cash for the goods, which will be resold to shareholders at invoice pnces, plus a charge of 5 per cent, to cover expenses. The object of the company is that the shareholders, who are retailers, will be able to buy all classes of goods at the lowest wholesale prices for cash, without ref erence to the quantity bought. By this plan of co-operative buying it is figured that a great saving can be made over the regular way of buying in small lots by retailers, who lose the trade discounts and other items, which it is estimated malee a total of about 13 per cent. The multiple shop competition is said to be bearing heavily on the small retailers, and some plan of thia kind is necessary if they are not to be crowded out. The idea is an excellent one, but whether it can be made a practical success or not remains to be seen.