hands several days ahead of date of insertion, so you get them set up better than if they were handed in the last minute. Get a proof of the large ads. you run, so there will be no possibility of error on prices. Your printer will furnish you with a special holly border for your ads. and also some good Santa Claus cuts, perfumery cuts, miscellaneous holiday cuts. They have these cuts on a matrix board and will cut them out for you, cast and block them free of charge. Visit your printer, get on good terms with him, he will give your ads. a fine set-up. Send him a small box of cigars or a box of candy for Christmas.

Early in November make a list of all the holiday goods you intend to display, then group them in window displays and number each display. Start off with a solid display of a new novelty for number one. This will get people thinking of Christmas, and you will be the one to fire the first shot. Follow it up with a few staples like a solid window of brushes, hair, tooth, nail, complexion, clothes, hat, military, and whisk brooms. Then a window of Christmas cards, folders, booklets, fancy calendars, stickers and seals. These kinds of goods are bought early, as many people send them to foreign countries and to Hawaii and the Philippines. Follow after this with a window of novelties, which keep up the peoples' interest, then a solid window of gifts for men, next a solid window of gifts for women, then a stationery window, followed by a perfumery window, next a mixed window, or toilet and manicure goods window. The last two weeks you will have to run in cigar and candy windows and mixed windows of holiday gifts for both sexes. You will have to start early with your window displays in order to show up all your goods, even though you carry nothing but staples. A good holiday business can be built up on such staples as hot-water bottles, chamois vests, brushes, perfumes, toilet waters, manicure goods, cigars, candy, celluloid goods, mirrors, fancy bottles of bay rum, shaving materials, safety razors, fountain pens, stationery, face creams and lotions, leather goods, inkstands, glass test tubes (for making hat-pin holders), Christmas post cards,

toilet soaps, bath sponges, medicine cases, cameras, post-card albums, books, playing cards, etc.

If you have any left-over holiday goods from last year you can afford to cut the price on them and have a special sale in November. If you work the premium plan, giving premiums for $10 worth of cash register checks, start it early, say about October 15, and run it to Christmas. Run special sales during November on some Christmas novelty, such as a Japanese vase or Japanese baskets. People will buy them and keep them to give as Christmas gifts.

Buying holiday goods requires great judgment. To buy enough to fill all demands and not to buy too much to take off the profit is a hard proposition to solve. You don't want to lose several sales on a good seller by being out of it a few days before Christmas, neither do you want to carry over a lot of toilet sets and fancy goods. Beware of overloading yourself with high-priced goods. If you want to accept a jobber's proposition to take off the amount of your car fare from your bill when you pay it, why all right, but when you make your trip to his city, he is apt to put his best salesman after you and before you go home you have bought twice as much as you need. Of course, you have had a nice trip and a good dinner at the firm's expense, but in the end it would have been better to have paid your own expenses and bought your holiday goods from two or three firms instead of one. When you pay your own way you are free to go about, compare prices, and have the advantage of a wider selection.

There is no end to the number of Christmas novelties that will make good sellers. Cut glass, Bohemian glass, decorated china, Japanese decorated plates, photograph frames, candlesticks, desk sets, toilet sets, manicure sets, traveling sets, leather goods, ladies' shopping bags, pocketbooks, shaving pads, telephone registers, fancy bric-a-brac, vases, paper weights, inkstands, cutlery, jewelry, pipes, tobacco pouches, cigar cases, smoking and shaving utensils, triplicate and hand mirrors, pocket flasks, paper cutters, celluloid goods, imported steins and smoking sets, silver sewing sets, plates

decorated with cigar bands, fancy combs, infants' toilet sets, leather pipe rests, society banners and hangers, cameras and supplies, music rolls, toys and novelties. Choose something that the other stores don't carry. The more novel your stock the more people it will attract.

For your holiday business you must attract the attention of your competitors' customers as well as your own. A "Gift Certificate" or "Merchandise Bond" is a good thing. It is a receipt for money paid and good to the bearer for merchandise to the amount filled in. It does away with the bother of exchanges, for the recipient chooses his own gift. If a customer has decided to put $5.00 into a gift he buys a certificate filled in for $5.00 worth of goods. This is given to the other party, who then chooses what he wants up to that amount.

If you carry a good line of holiday goods you will find it desirable to issue a booklet. The general run of copy should be suggestive. People want suggestions for gifts, then they can pick them out better. Suggest such articles for boys, such for girls, for men and women. Mention all the new novelties you have, and don't forget to state that all your holiday goods were selected especially for their utilization, that they are useful and sensible gifts and will be greatly appreciated by the recipients. Put in a strong paragraph about the advantages of shopping early. People have an inherent habit of postponing their gift buying until the last moment, either on the ground that gift giving is a nuisance, or that they expect to save a few pennies for the final mark downs on Christmas Eve. Tell them to shop early, nothing is gained by delay, the last minute the stocks are depleted, goods have been pawed over; they cannot be given such good service in the final rush. Induce them to make their selections early. Offer to reserve articles for them upon payment of a small deposit, they needn't call for them until the day before Christmas. Set some particular day as a limit for reserving goods, for you don't want to carry them over when you might have sold them. Your booklet should be

neatly gotten up and distributed about December 5. After that date people are flooded with advertising matter and won't pay so much attention to yours. Get yours in their hands before the others are ready.

Be the first in the field in your store displays, window displays, newspaper ads., and booklets. Have your store neatly decorated. Don't use the red paper bells and green and red paper festoons. Use fresh laurel twined on a rope. You can buy it by the yard all twined. Have a laurel wreath in each window. Tie a big red ribbon on it and let the ends hang down. A genuine smilax vine can be twisted around the upright posts of your soda fountain, with the roots of the the vine dipping in a mineral glass of water, to keep it fresh. Let people know that you are out for your share of the holiday business. Holidays are the days of "easy money" and as holiday trade is not confined to any one store or class of stores, there is no reason why you shouldn't get a little of that "easy money."

Look out for "advance buying" and "over buying." There isn't any need of buying your holiday goods in May and June. If you tie up a lot of money in them then or have given your order for them, perhaps some pretty novelties will come out in September or October, and you will have to pass them by, as you have already picked out your holiday goods. Wait until all the jobbers have their complete stocks, then look around for the best sellers and the best prices. Figure up your purchases and about what per cent. you will sell of them. This will give you your expected receipts, then you will know about how much money will have to be spent to turn that amount of goods. If you buy twenty toilet sets to sell at $6.00 that cost you $3.50, you will have to sell twelve of them just to get your money back. If you carry the rest over you haven't made any money, for you have only recovered cost, haven't paid for the extra advertising, and next year they will bring less money.

Have price tickets on all the lower priced articles. These price tickets should be of white cardboard with black or red

letters to match your store cards. It isn't desirable to put price tickets on toilet sets or distinct designs of high priced holiday articles. The person giving such an article and the person getting it don't want everybody in town to know the price of it. Get the price tickets on about everything else except goods coming under the above class.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

BUILDING BUSINESS BY CONCENTRATION AND SUGGESTION.

BUSINESS BUILDING BY CONCENTRATION CAMPAIGNS.-You can move almost any article in your stock by means of a well-planned concentration campaign. To illustrate, let us take some article that is sold in almost every pharmacy and used by both sexes. Pompeian Massage Cream, for instance. We will assume that you have purchased four dozen fifty cent size and one dozen $1.00 size. The amount of the order would be about $24.00, less discounts. Now comes the question of the best method of moving it quickly. The concentration campaign is the best method known to the writer. The general plan of it is as follows:

Write

Select a certain week to be known as Pompeian Massage Cream week. Plan for it at least two weeks ahead. three four-inch single-column newspaper advertisements, containing a full description of the goods and its uses, also mention that it is being largely advertised in the leading women's and men's magazines. Spend a lot of time on these ads., so as to have them strong and forceful. You probably can get a newspaper electro from the manufacturers. These ads. should call attention to your window display and interior displays of the article.

Next write out a nice little story of the article, mentioning in their natural order, its strong selling points. Have each clerk memorize this selling point story. This is important. It should not be omitted.

Plan a pretty window display. Do your level best on