DOES CREDIT PAY?

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 229, 1 December 1888, Page 3

DOES CREDIT PAY?

[to the editor.] Sib, —I do not know who the tradesman is that you have received your information from on the question “ Does credit pay?” but he seems to assume that the tradesmen encourage credit. Now this on the face of it is absurd. Of course the business man trusts to the amount of business he does, and the cash he receives from that business to pay his own way. If he cannot get payment of debts due to him he cannot pay his own debts, therefore it is clearly to his own interest to get as much ready cash as possible. There must be times when we cannot help giving a little credit, such as where a man receiving weekly wages wants something till the end of the week. But in the majority of cases we make reductions for cash. What we tradesmen feel the hardest is that certain mushroom stores set up here offering to sell goods cheap for cash. Those people who when they had no money come to us old established ones, then run to these new places with all their ready cash, leaving us out in the cold. When their money runs out back they come to us and expect us to treat them like regular customers.—l am, etc., Another Tradesman.

[to the editor.] Sir, —In your report in Thursday’s issue of an interview with a Gisborne tradesman you have hit upon a question which is sure to be of general interest. For my part I think the tradesmen are greatly to blame. I am only in receipt of a small salary, and I try to keep within my means. Although my custom is not great I generally contrive to pay cash, but I don’t get much benefit by it. Some of my higher toned neighbors who put on a lot of side and keep up appearances far beyond their station can get unlimited credit, and they pay no more for their goods than I do. In fact the tradesmen seem to encourage them to get goods on credit, hoping no doubt in a large turnover to pay themeelves back. In the meantime my cash bears the burden and I don’t think it is fair. Until they make some equitable distinction between cash and credit customers people are sure to cling to the credit system. —I am, etc., Clerk.

Ito the editor.] Sir, —Whether oredit does or does not pay I don’t give a rap. What I want to say is that my confidence in some of those st ires who pretend to sell cheaper for cash has been shaken. Seeing in a published price list that I could get an article cheaper than it was selling elsewhere I went to a certain shop in town and asked for the article. How much is it? “So and so” said he, naming a price threepence dearer than the advertised one. “I thought your price list said it was only so and so?” “Oh yes! we did have one case in at that price, but we are now out of it.” I felt sold, but it wasn’t worth barneying about, so I took the thing and left. The price is stiil marked the same in the advertised list, so I presume another case has come in at the cheaper price.—l am, etc., One Who’s Been Had.

[to the editor.] Sib,—The remarks elicited by your reporter, in his interview with a tradesman—l should like to know the latter’s name, because he speaks so honestly—have opened my eyes. My policy hitherto has always been to pay cash, but I have never yet discovered when those who have had dealings with myself have pursued the same policy: now I know why, thanks to that obliging tradesman. A question which I would now ask is, who has to make up the deficiency in the tradesman’s accounts ? Do they take it from their consolidated capital, or have we cash purchasers to stand the brunt of it ?—I am, etc., Cash.