Buying goods - the commercial buyer and his work

Excerpt:

"Goods well bought are half sold " is an old adage. It is not to be too Ughtly accepted by the beginner, but to the experienced trader, who knows the limitations of actual trade,, it is sound enough. Buying, on the whole, is rarely as important as selling. Salesmanship, which is involved the opening of new markets, the extension of trade, and the actual creation of a commercial concern, demands greater ingenuity, a bolder course of action, a finer imagination and a wider power of resources than buying can ever do. A salesman must be hopeful and creative. He should possess robust health and have plenty of vital forces to burn up.

A buyer can be morose and ill and cross-grained and despairing, without doing himself or his cause much harm. Buyer and Salesman. In the nature of things, we love the salesman — but avoid him. We dislike the buyer — ^but the queue outside his office is long.

There is between these two classes of men the substantial difference between having an axe to grind and possession of a grindstone.

The same person may double the parts; in fact, a large number of businessmen are obliged to be both buyers and salesmen, but even these quickly discover that they must not attempt to attend to the two branches in quite the same spirit. " When I get dejected I buy," said a trader, " but when I feel gay and enthusiastic I rush out and sell.

If I start buying in the same spirit of eagerness I feel when I am seeing, I should be ruined in a month." Though it is safe to assume that many great businesses have been made by clever salesmanship, it is equally safe to assume that some have been ruined, or at least seriously damaged, by careless buying. The buyer can very easily throw away the profit of a whole year by a few careless deeds, or, worse still, by pursuing a penny wise and pound foolish policy, he can neutralize the most skilful efforts of all the other departments.

Once the concern is in going order and adequate arrangements are made for the manipulation and sale of goods, the buyer becomes practically the really important person in the firm. He may not hold the key to success, but into his hand is committed the key of failure.

His good deeds, his constant zeal, his untiring research, his splendid method, his intimate knowledge of markets — all these may be taken for granted and never noticed, but let him lapse badly and the end is a disaster. Now let us take the case of a manufacturing firm that has built up a successful trade upon an absolute guarantee of quality, and whose salesmen have persistently met fierce competition and obtained good prices through the effects of this backing.

Buying goods - the commercial buyer and his work - PDF by Albert E. Bull