Attracting The Consumer

After noting the great advantage that attractive packages had in wholesale sales the writer was more interested than ever in the retail package. Retail stores were visited in the best part of Chicago where the rents paid for space would make most of us gasp. These stores sell to high-class trade and they are as neat and clean as a parlor. The first one visited offered "A Branded" honey. When asked if they handled no other kind they replied that they did not. The writer then enquired whether it was because the public insisted on this brand, owing to its advertising, that they handled no other. The reply was that it was because of the clean packages in which it was offered. The salesman then showed the comb honey in clean tight cartons, and the extracted jars wrapped in oil paper. There was no drip and every separate section or jar was as nice and clean as any other line which they had on their shelves. The public asked for this honey because of its advertising, but most buyers would as readily accept any other if equally attractive. This dealer handled it because it was clean and saved him the annoyance of dirty packages. The reason was clear enough and we went out to find a store that handled something else. We found it but a few doors away and the honey was the only sticky package that we found in that store. The extracted honey packages were sealed in the ordinary way and nearly every one showed a slight drip down one side. This little streak of honey would catch all the dust and thus it soon became anything but attractive. The label was printed in only one color so that altogether there was no comparison in the appearance of the brands. Had the writer been in search of honey for his own table it is easy to guess which he would buy if he knew nothing of either producer. Furthermore, he left the store with the feeling that he had learned some lessons which he could utilize to good advantage in marketing his own honey crop. One does not have to look far to see that money spent in putting up our product in the most attractive package will come back several times over when we sell the crop.

Roadside salesroom in Colorado.

Package Must Fit The Trade

This brings us to another consideration; the kind of package in which to ship. This depends altogether on the trade to which the honey is to be sold. If to a buyer who will sell it again under his own trade name it should have no mark of any kind excepting the net weight which the law requires. If, on the other hand, it is to be sold through some regular channel which recognizes the producer's trade-mark as an asset it should be labelled with the producer's own mark. In one warehouse there was a big pile of shipping cases marked "J. E. Crane & Son, Middlebury, Vt. " One of the cases was opened and some of the sections removed. They were very nice and each was wrapped in a clean carton with the Crane name and the usual printed matter. The dealer remarked that he had been handling Crane honey for nearly thirty years. In this case the honey was known to the buyer and the name was a guarantee of quality. But a few weeks before the writer had asked for honey in the Boston market and had been shown a jar of extracted honey with the Crane label. There is no question but that it is greatly to the advantage of the seller to market his best product under his own trade name when he can do so. However, it often happens that when he goes into a strange market the only buyers who will present themselves will be those who buy to sell again under their own name and such would not buy honey with the individual trade-mark. It is well to correspond with the commission merchant with whom one expects to deal and learn something of the market requirements. Some of the largest sellers of honey in the Middle West have a trade which they supply with comb honey in their own cartons and with each case they send a placard for advertising purposes. This trade has come to look for the brand. Honey sold to this trade is placed in the cartons and repacked after it reaches their warehouse. Of course, not all of the honey that passes through their hands is handled in this matter.

Five and ten pound friction top pails are popular for retail sale.