D.D. 3277-46 THE FIGURES ON WHICH THESE GRAPHS ARE BASED ARE REPORTED WEEKLY IN THE SURVEY OF CURRENT BUSINESS, PUBLISHED BY THE BUREAU OF CENSUS. BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS Importance of Mail-Order Retailing in New England States Analyzed.. Cooperative Buying Associations Serve More Than Quarter Million Farmers. General Working Conditions Claimed Improved by Women's Work Regulations.... "New England Sales Plan" Presented to Fourth New England Conference Size of Community Advertising Fund for Larger Cities Listed. Increased Highway Expenditures Reported by American Automobile Ass'n. Railroads Claim Greatest Promptness in Freight Shipments Ever Recorded. Activities of Commercial Standards Group, Department of Commerce. Simplified Practice Savings of 7 Industries Estimated at $230,000,000. Roadmarking and House furnishings as Surplus Cotton Outlets Nationally Endorsed Lighting Plan Adopted by Electrical Development Soc. 10 IMPORTANCE OF MAIL-ORDER RETAILING IN NEW ENGLAND STATES ANALYZED "The Retailer and the Consumer in New England," recently made public by the Domestic Commerce Division and available from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, for ten cents a copy, lists the parcel-post deliveries on rural mail routes in 1927 as indicating the relative importance of mail-order trade in the various New England States. The States of Northern New England were found to rank high in the number of packages delivered in proportion to the rural population. New Hampshire leads in the average number of packages per family on rural routes, Vermont and Maine also ranking high, while Massachusetts is lower. It is pointed out that the proportion in Connecticut is doubtless influenced by suburban deliveries from the New York metropolitan area. The table of parcel-post deliveries on rural mail routes in 1927 follows: Some department stores in the larger cities have established mail-order departments in the attempt to meet competition from the specialized mailorder houses which do an extensive business throughout the rural sections of New England and also in some industrial sections. The opposite tendency of some large mail-order houses to establish retail stores in various strategic points throughout the country, has been noted previously in "Domestic Commerce." Some retailers in rural sections of Northern New England have developed the mail order business as an important part of their trade, although it is usually looked upon as supplementary to the regular trade within the store and as a means of attracting retail customers from beyond their usual trading limit. HANDLING COSTS FOR CANNED PRODUCTS STUDIED The Foodstuffs Division of the Department of Commerce has undertaken a special study of handling costs for canned vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, soups and milk. Plans are being made for a complete study of the handling costs of canned foods through canners, wholesale distributors, including various types of jobbers, and retailers. This information will be applied to the different commodities, further broken down into grades and sizes. findings will present the conditions with relation to drop shipments and packing-house handling. The The study will be under the supervision of the Division's Grocery Specialist, whose addition to the staff of the Foodstuffs Division was announced in "Domestic Commerce" for November 5. Studies are to be made in different parts of the country, so that comparisons may be made between outstanding houses in their field in each region. Such studies are now under way in representative houses in the Middle West. Briefly, the method is to allocate the cost of handling to the different departments or classifications of merchandise; and then to conduct further research on canned foods. A major object of the study is to promote the use by the wholesale grocer of more scientific accounting methods in computing his costs of handling various types of canned foods, which represent such an important part of his business. |