False Bargains Betray Us

I

WHAT has become of the hawk-eyed, sensitive-fingered shopper who used to ‘feel’ the quality of silks, cottons, linens, and woolens, who never overlooked the fineness and evenness of stitching, who divined with a sort of sixth sense the quality of what she bought? She lost her virtue for intelligent buying in those mad, flush, happy-go-lucky days when we all went over the top in a wave of prosperity. Quality was taken for granted, and at the prices that then prevailed was generally included, but what women wanted was style, novelty, smartness, modernity, instead of the homely virtues of pure silk, all wool, twenty stitches to the inch, and other earmarks of carefully made goods. No one was looking for things that endured. Grandmother’s silk dress which stood alone and lasted a lifetime was an outgrown tradition. We sowed the wind of careless shopping; we are reaping the whirlwind of shoddy goods.

There is scarcely a home in this broad land of ours — which advertising men tell us is replete with homes — that has not been the scene during the last year or two of the following tragedy. A member of the family comes home proudly exhibiting a dress, tie, pair of gloves, or suit just purchased, exclaiming with naïve satisfaction: ‘Just look at the bargain I found!’

The family looks, and, after the usual round of ‘guess-what-I-paids,’ is told the price and makes proper noises of surprise and incredulity at its cheapness. In due course the lucky purchaser proceeds to wear it, and then comes disillusionment as faults and defects are revealed, so serious that the article turns out to be no bargain at all.

Sometimes it can be taken back, but not always, for many such sales are conducted on the ‘no-returns ’ basis; but in any case either the store or the customer loses. Too often the garment was bought at one of those nameless emporiums which spring up overnight like poisonous fungi, without sponsor or responsibility, selling for spot cash, the buyer beware.

No, they are not accidents, these tragedies. They are the effects, one might almost say the objectives, of a new industry: the mass production of brummagem merchandise, so cheap, so scamped, so lacking in quality that its manufacture would be economic futility but for one thing — the gullibility of the public.

So sizable and pervasive is this lamentable traffic that there has already grown up around it a new vocabulary of aspersion. Its products are contemptuously described by nicknames already familiar to buyers daily offered tempting but unbelievable bargains.

If it’s a dress skimped in cutting, sewed with stitches much too large, that fades or shrinks or gives at the seams, that won’t stand washing or cleaning, as the case may be, it is technically known as ‘dreck.’

The good old word ‘shoddy’ has been resurrected and stretched to cover other textiles. Instead of merely describing wool doctored with cotton, it also means silk made heavy by loading the thread with tin, and other fabrics mysteriously manipulated to make them seem better than they are.

‘Borax’ is the word applied by the informed to furniture of anonymous origin put together with fair outward show to hide vital faults within — unseasoned wood, ill-fitting joints, panels that will warp, and unsanitary stuffing in its upholstery.

A shirt scanty as to length, tight where it should be full, a few millimetres astray of the size stamped on it, whose buttonholes seem to be loose threads, and whose buttons are so chipped and rough they can hardly be forced through the buttonholes, is ‘schlag.’

Dreck, shoddy, borax, and schlag! Nameless merchandise that floods the markets to tempt the unwary with sorry bargains, cheat the purchaser, ruin the retailer’s reputation, and menace the honest manufacturer too scrupulous to tamper with the quality of his goods.

II

I am indebted to that resplendent trade paper, Apparel Arts, for a detailed and startling account of how the ‘schlager’ fabricates men’s shirts which, like hawkers’ spectacles, are made to sell rather than to wear. This account may well furnish us with an example of what is going on in hundreds of anonymous factories producing nearly everything a human being buys.

The schlager is able, apparently, to produce for $12.50 a dozen and less shirts which cost the standard manufacturer $15. They look equally good in the box. The buyer can’t tell the difference until he wears them or has them washed. In many cases even the dealer is fooled. It is a long story, but the gist of it is that some of the quality is lopped off at every step of manufacture.

Standard shirts are cut by hand, 48 ply (a pile half an inch thick), around a wooden pattern edged with brass, with a short knife held firmly against the brass edge. The top and bottom layers match exactly. Schlag shirts are cut 250, 400, and even 500 ply (four to six inches of material). The outline is marked from a paper pattern, the edge of which, none too firm in the first place, becomes dog-eared and worn with use. Schlag shirts are cut with an electric knife, difficult for several reasons to hold vertical and guide truly. Variation between the top and bottom layer may range from one quarter to one half inch. But hand cutting costs 50 cents a dozen; machine cutting, 15 cents.

Making these brass-bound patterns is a craft that has been handed down in certain Troy families for generations. They cost about $1000, while a set of paper patterns costs $5.00. At that price the schlager could, if he would, replace them every few weeks and still make a good profit, but instead the same patterns are used for years.

Another thing about the electric cutter that favors the schlager is the opportunity to skimp the material, an eighth here, a quarter there, which cannot be done with the brass-bound patterns. A standard shirt maker uses 30½ to 31½ yards to the dozen. The schlager gets a dozen shirts out of 24 to 27 yards of material.

There are forty-six different stitching operations in a standard shirt, each performed by a different operative who in time becomes expert. The sewing machines are locked to produce twenty to twenty-two stitches an inch. The schlager lumps stitching into twelve or fifteen groups, each worker performing several operations, and his machines are geared to sixteen and even twelve stitches to an inch. Thus the sewing costs him 60 to 80 cents a dozen as against the standard shirt maker’s $1.50 to $1.80.

‘Inner lining material (for neckbands, collars, cuffs, and centre pleats) ranges from 5 cents a yard on the substandard shirt to 16 cents a yard on the standard,’ continues Apparel Arts. ‘The amount of lining per dozen shirts runs about a yard for collars, a yard for centre pleats, a yard and a half for cuffs — a matter of three and a half to four yards per dozen. The average cost of standard linings is about 30 cents a dozen — an item which the schlager is able to dispose of for a dime a dozen.

‘The average material for a $1.95 shirt runs 20 cents a yard. The standard maker uses 31 yards a dozen, while the sub-standard average is 26 yards a dozen. The five-yard difference scores a neat saving of $1.00 a dozen for the sharpshooter.

‘There are twelve common classifications of buttons — superfine, fine, ¾ fine, and ½ fine. Each of these four grades is divided into firsts, seconds, and thirds. Your standard maker (remembering that we are speaking of popular-price merchandise) usually uses superfine seconds or fine firsts. Your sub-standard maker usually uses ¾ fine thirds or ½ fine seconds. The resultant differential in cost of buttons is a matter of from 40 cents to 60 cents on the dozen shirts.

‘Interlined parts of a standard shirt are always stitched wrong side out, then turned right side out and pressed with a hand iron to ensure absolutely straight creases.

‘Sub-standard practice handles this item by machine steam pressing, with a resultant saving of from 10 cents to 15 cents per dozen.

‘Next follow the two shirts into the laundry. The sub-standard shirt is seldom more than half pressed (collar and front only) and is invariably pressed by machine. The standard shirt, as an equally invariable practice, is completely pressed and is pressed by hand. The latter method costs between 42 cents and 50 cents a dozen, while the former can be accomplished between 12 cents and 18 cents a dozen, scoring another 30 cents for Mr. Schlag.’

By just such cutting of all expensive corners, the schlag shirt maker reduces costs on a dozen shirts something like this: —

No wonder he can sell his shirts at two dollars a dozen less than the lowestpriced good shirt and still show a profit. And this brief sketch takes no note of the numerous inspections which check up the standard shirt at every step, but which the schlager regards as superfluous.

III

By almost the same methods with which the schlager produces the belowpar shirts, manufacturers of woman’s wear curtail quality while preserving the semblance to produce the bargain dress. The material is skimped in cutting until there is no leeway for alterations. There is the same uncertainty as to sizes, because too many are cut at one time. The stitching is coarse and the material will stand little wear, and suffers abominably in laundering or dry cleaning. There are other tricks in gloves, shoes, hosiery, furs, furniture, household utensils, tires, and electric devices, all of which contribute to the flood of bargain goods on which a deluded public, forced to make each dollar go as far as possible, is wasting its money.

In almost any large city, outside the show window of some milliner or modiste one often sees a woman sketching a dress or hat on display there. She is stealing style. Style costs its originator money as surely as fabrics or labor, and style is an essential quality of the finished product. The copyist gets his for nothing, and adds it to his flimsy garments as further bait for unwary shoppers. The tricks of the needle trades are as ancient as the art of dress, but never have they been drawn upon so extensively as in this era of bargain-hunting madness.

In hosiery, costs are cut by using tram or low-twist silk (five turns of the thread to an inch), while a high twist (twenty turns to the inch) is used in making good hose. A desirable dull finish automatically occurs when using high-twist silk. The higher the twist, the duller the finish. To get a dull finish on a low-twist hose the manufacturer treats his product with sodium hyposulphite.

The number of needles used runs from about 364, for what is called low gauge, to 476, which is a high gauge. These needles are set in a bar some 13½ inches wide. The unscrupulous manufacturer may leave out from 12 to 15 needles — quite a saving of silk thread in quantity production. The hose when made are stretched to standard size, so one cannot tell by comparison with good hose that fewer needles were used.

For chiffon hose, unreliable manufacturers use a silk thread with 5 to 10 per cent less silk than that used by reputable manufacturers. This difference in quality is difficult for the consumer to detect, but materially reduces the cost of manufacturing and the durability of the stocking.

Nor is it merely in the domain of wearing apparel that the purchaser must be cannily aware in these parlous times. Even household utensils are on the bargain counter. Observe the thinness of some aluminum ware. It is genuine aluminum, but it will not stand up under usage. It is like the trunk maker’s label, ‘solid leather.’ All leather is solid, and all aluminum is solid. It should be thick enough not to dent easily, but not so thick as to be clumsy. The trouble is that it all looks equally good to the careless eye.

Electric devices are a profitable field for the quality depreciator. The buyer is even less informed about such things than about wearing apparel, and a bright enamel may hide a multitude of faults. There are on the market refrigerators, ranges, toasters, percolators, which lack what Squibb’s calls ‘the priceless ingredient’ — the maker’s conscience. Metal parts are too thin, bending and twisting and losing their shape, dislocating connections and short-circuiting the device. Handles are improperly insulated, and fuse protection is lacking. There is trouble with lamps. The inefficient bargain substitutes are either imported bulbs with carbon instead of tungsten filaments, or ‘re-fills’ — burned out secondhand lamps in which inferior filaments have been inserted. In either case they waste current, and with lamps, as with other electric devices, it is the cost of upkeep that counts.

To protect himself, the customer should look for the name of the maker. He should not buy anything, however low the price, unless he knows that it is made by a manufacturer with a reputation for integrity. Generally the shoddy goods have a name, but it is a name of which one has never heard before.

IV

A large stuffed chair in a show window during a special sale of furniture aroused the curiosity of a manufacturer of fine furniture. It was marked ‘$34.79, formerly $60.’ He bought it, shipped it to his factory, and asked what it would cost to duplicate it. The answer was that it could be manufactured to sell at a profit for $21. Even the bargain price was an excessive one.

Let’s take a look at an upholstered chair as turned out in this man’s workshop, and compare it briefly with such an imitation as the bargain chair just noted.

First, there are the workmen themselves. There is the difference between craftsmen with pride in their work and ordinary labor, mere workmen, not cabinetmakers. Then there is the lumber. Even if the bogus chair were genuine mahogany — which it is n’t — the lumber might have cost less than half that in the desirable chair. Fortysix inches of San Domingo mahogany costs $5.52; the same quantity of African mahogany, $1.15. There is a similar difference in quality in the veneers and inlays. But the manufacturer of ‘borax’ does not need to use such expensive woods. He can paste his veneer on chestnut or white wood instead of mahogany cores or second-growth ash. Instead of careful and accurate joinery, by mortises and tenons, nails and glue are used to hold the frame together.

But it is in the upholstery that he gets in his shadiest work. Unfortunately, under the law of some states, anything is ‘down’ that grows on a bird’s back. The ‘down’ that fills the cushions of the borax chair is chicken feathers, chopped up to make them softer, which cost 15 cents a pound when new, less if secondhand. The live matter in the quills nourishes all sorts of insects, including moths. Real down is goose feathers, with no large quills in it to work through the covering or afford breeding grounds for vermin.

In the cheap chair the springs are too few in number, supported by a weak grade of burlap tacked to the frame. Moss is used in place of horsehair, and a cheap cotton batting, 3 cents a pound, is stretched over it. In the quality chair, double conical tempered springs are sewn to Scotch webbing woven back and forth for strength. Above the springs a layer of burlap is sewed to the springs, then a layer of black horsehair, then another layer of burlap, then one of the softer curled brown hair, next the cotton padding, and finally a covering of muslin before the upholstery is put on. The down in the cushions is held in small pockets to keep it from working into the corners.

These are some of the differences of workmanship in the two kinds of chairs. There are other devices in other kinds of furniture. For instance, in buying a secretary or bookcase with glass-paned doors, feel the astragals — that is, the strips in which the panes are supposed to be set. In the cheap piece the glass fills the entire door; the astragals are merely sawed-out pieces laid on the glass. Both appearance and durability are sacrificed to make a bargain holiday.

V

What has caused this deluge of lowgrade goods, and particularly why has the American shopper gone off the quality standard in favor of products which have nothing to commend them but price?

When the dam of inflated values broke, and hundreds of reputable manufacturers found themselves with large stocks of goods and no buyers at the old pre-crash prices, this merchandise was put on the market at what it would bring. These were real bargains, and enterprising retailers made the most of the so-called ‘distress’ selling. So satisfactory was the response that many looked around for more such goods — and did not find them. The supply was not inexhaustible, and of course it could not be duplicated. Instead, a horde of manufacturers with everything to gain and nothing to lose sprang into the breach and began producing goods to sell at bargain prices, at a profit to the manufacturers.

Not all retailers were caught by these imitations, but many were, and soon a wail went up all over the land. The new cheap goods were not bargains. Far from it. At the very best they were worth no more than the price paid, and generally not even that, for in every article of manufacture, every garment, furnishing, utensil, there is a point below which it is not safe to go. You can cheapen a product just so far, and most of these anonymous manufacturers went below the danger line.

All this has created concern among manufacturers who make goods of quality. They see both dealers and public fooled, and losing money thereby, and they realize that theirs is a double loss, for this new competition cannot be met on a price basis, and the odium will overwhelm even the most conscientious manufacturers and destroy their normal market. The consumer will lose faith in all goods, all makers.

A number of manufacturers have decided to act, and, in the characteristic American way, have perfected an organization to be known as the National Quality Maintenance League. Julius Forstmann, head of a famous woolen company, is a prime mover, and associated with him are many manufacturers of quality goods, chiefly in the domain of wearing apparel, and including the editors of fashion and other women’s magazines. Mr. Forstmann says: —

Women are bewildered by the avalanche of indifferent and inferior merchandise sold to them on the appeal of price, but promoted and advertised as being representative of the newest and best in style and in quality. They have lost their perspective as to what constitutes a becoming and good standard of style, and they are rapidly losing faith in the constantly reiterated appeal of cheapness because they are finding that thrift of this character is, in the end, the most wasteful extravagance.

The theory that the American woman lives in such a rapidly changing world of style that she is interested only in the visible appeal of the moment without regard to intrinsic quality and style value is fallacious. Rather, it is the result of a phase of competition which is destructive to all of the elements concerned — the manufacturer, the retailer, and last but not least — the ultimate consumer. It places a premium on the imitator and the copyist; on inferiority of product in design, execution, and raw materials. To my mind, it is just as damnable to steal the results of the ingenuity and ability of an originator as it is to steal his physical property. And yet this condition is to-day, not the exception, but almost the general rule.

The movement has naturally received much help from newspapers and magazines. The kind of merchandise that is undermining the public confidence in the integrity of American goods is not the sort that furnishes advertising revenue. Advertised brands are suffering from this competition along with other well-known products which, while not advertised, have a reputation for integrity. These manufacturers dare not tamper with the quality of their products. Nor can they stand by inert while so much vicious stuff is being dumped on the market. So the reputable manufacturers, which include most advertisers, have joined with magazines and newspapers to set the facts before the buying public. One leading New York newspaper has been carrying advertisements of its own, warning its readers. All this propaganda is directed toward telling people that there is plenty of reliable merchandise for sale at prices lower than the peaks of 1929, but not so low as the worthless stuff that goes by the name of dreck, schlag, shoddy, borax, and junk. The moral of it all is that never in American shopping was a trusted trade name or mark so necessary in identifying dependable goods.

One company has grappled with the problem by means of what it calls its Quality Control Plan. The Viscose Company manufactures rayon yarn. Many weavers and knitters use this yarn as raw material for their products, and these products are in turn raw materials for manufacturers of another set of products which reach the public in the form of various garments. The Viscose Company designed a label reading ‘Tested Quality,’ the use of which by its customers is licensed. Buying Crown Brand yarn from the Viscose Company did not carry with it the right to use the label. Only those who agreed at the start to maintain certain standards, and who permitted their products to be tested once a month by the Better Fabrics Testing Bureau of the National Retail Dry Goods Association, were allowed to use it on their manufactured goods. Not only could the right to use the label be granted; it could be withdrawn, as was found necessary in the case of some manufacturers who failed to live up to the requirements.

The results have been eminently satisfactory. Both licensees and retailers handling Crown Brand yarns report satisfaction of customers, and fewer returned goods. One large retailer says: —

‘The Viscose plan takes a tremendous responsibility off the shoulders of the buyer when it not only tests the rayon yarn in the two best rayon laboratories of the country, but checks the finished product as well.’

VI

What is meant by quality in manufactured products? Some idea may be obtained by noting what is lost when the maker begins to skimp, substitute, and cut corners, as in the story of the schlag shirt. Or, better still, by reviewing the slow steps with which quality is built up or added to a product of barter and sale.

Let us take the orange as an example, partly because I have the facts at hand, but also because Francis Q. Story, the man responsible for the transformation of the fruit into a uniform, dependable article of commerce, has just died and attention has turned for the moment to his life work.

Mr. Story began to raise oranges in Southern California in 1883, just six years after the first oranges were shipped across the country from that state. They were small, scaly, sunburned, neither sweet nor juicy, with skins puffy from handling and sometimes tough. He organized the growers and persuaded them to pick several times a season, selecting only the best, instead of harvesting all at once. Fumigating was an expense the growers tried to escape. He arranged to have it done every two years, instead of every five, as was the custom. He substituted sharp clippers for hand picking, provided better bags for the fruit, and introduced spring wagons in place of hard-riding lumber wagons, to save the fruit from damage during the haul to the packing plant.

Hand washing bruised the fruit. Story installed rotary brushes. The oranges were graded for size and color by machinery, and each orange wrapped in tissue paper. Such, briefly, is the genesis of Sunkist oranges, which have by their quality and persistent advertising boosted per capita orange consumption 400 per cent. When a youthful admirer asked Story what the Q in his name stood for, he replied, ‘Quality.’

Behind every manufactured product possessing that indefinable something which we rather vaguely designate as quality there is a similar story of patient upbuilding. With each one it is easy to cut costs by slighting or omitting some of the steps or processes. Unreliable, low-grade products are nothing new. We have had them from the beginning of industry. The menace lies in the over-stimulation of this nefarious industry, and the ease with which the public falls victim to low prices.

‘Quality’ is an elusive word. A low-priced article can be good of its kind, can have quality within the limits of its price. The contention is that poorly made merchandise is masquerading as something better, that it is being misrepresented. It is not the bargain that it pretends to be. It is not better goods sold at a sacrifice, but cheap goods sold at a liberal profit. If the consumer knew what she was buying, she would not buy it; but she is not an expert in much that she buys. She must depend on the store or on a manufacturer’s name or trade-mark. When she abandons these landmarks, trades at a store that takes advantage of her confidence, or buys goods of whose origin she is ignorant, she takes chances and will regret it.

VII

There is no doubt that the cost of retailing is too high, that the spread between wholesale and retail prices is too great. Here is where merchandising ingenuity should be exercised. The cuts should be made in the overhead of selling, not in the quality of the goods sold.

We have on one hand the honest manufacturer, making a good article, anxious to sell at as low a price as possible. Competition over the years has compelled him to study every method of reducing his cost of manufacture without lowering the quality of his goods. He knows that such goods as he makes cannot be reproduced for less. He knows also that goods of poorer quality are not worth making, that their manufacture is economic waste. His costs are now lower. Labor is cheaper; raw materials cost less. He can sell at lower prices than prevailed two years ago. But he cannot meet the prices asked for merchandise that pretends to be the same as his but is really inferior.

On the other hand, there is the manufacturer without conscience, responsibility, or reputation who is making goods merely to take advantage of a temporary condition — the public state of mind which still believes there are vast quantities of high-grade goods to be sold at ridiculous prices. So far the public has been too ready to respond, but now it is beginning to realize that it has been betrayed. Its resentment is turned against the stores that sold the goods. If the purchaser knew what she was buying, she would not buy it. She thinks that the cheap, shoddy, scamped goods are the products of the conscientious manufacturers, or at least of the same grade. She finds it difficult to discriminate. Even the professional buyers of the retail stores are sometimes fooled.

But there are still manufacturers who maintain the quality which has given them their reputation in the past. And there are still retail stores too careful of their reputation to risk the good will of their customers by offering any merchandise which they do not know is exactly what it is represented to be.