Business: Honest Shoppers

To a sub-convention of the National Retail Dry Goods Association in Chicago last week, President Homer Buckley of Buckley, Dement & Co., Chicago, said: “The theory [that the customer is always right] is sound because 99% of the people are honest. The other 1% takes advantage of the practice and the store may lose on the deal, but the loss is compensated by keeping the others satisfied.” Because two years ago 12% of gross volume of department store sales was returned by dissatisfied customers, the University of Pittsburgh is conducting research to learn just who is at fault—customer or merchant. Data so far accumulated indicates that one is wrong as often as the other.