Selling Home Furnishings: a Training Program

Part Iii, Pp. 75-98. United States Government Printing Office.

WHITON, SHERRILL. Elements of Interior Decoration. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 1937.

Period Decoration and Furniture, III, V, VI, VII, pp. 91-233. Taste, Style, and Fashion, XXI, pp. 627-647. Furniture Arrangement, XXIII, pp. 665-681.

WRIGHT, AGNES FOSTER. Interior Decoration for Modern Needs. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, N. Y. 1917.

VII, pp. 107-165.

FOOTNOTES:

For thousands of years the chair was a symbol of state and dignity, and not an article for ordinary use. Common people were not permitted to sit on chairs, and few of the great lords were permitted to sit on chairs in the presence of the king. The chair did not become common until the sixteenth century; before that, chests, benches, and stools were used.

These hutches, or small chests, held the clothing, personal belongings, and materials for the mass when the baron was en route from one castle to another, and were carried on the backs of pack mules. From this rudimentary beginning all modern forms of case goods have evolved.

The French "qu" or final "que" as in "baroque," is pronounced like "k." The accent is always on the final syllable.

The French "e" and "et" are pronounced like "a."

Pronounced Kănz.

Pronounced fo-tuh-ye, the "uh" having almost an "r" sound as in "burn," the final "e" practically silent.

Pronounced "sehz," practically the English word "says."

Pronounced dē'rĕk-twär.

A Handbook of the American Wing; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N. Y., 1928. Price $1.

Unit V

FURNITURE WOODS--THEIR ORIGIN AND USE

Value and Price in Relation to Home Furnishings.

Principal Furniture Woods.

Making the Most of Wood Structure and Its Appeal to the Eye.

Importance of Craftsmanship.

Courtesy the Veneer Association.

Figure 15.--Variety in Veneer Slicing.

1. Flat cut--American walnut, two-piece matched.

2. Crotch--Avodire.

3. Stump-wood--American walnut, four-piece matched.

4. Quarter--African mahogany, mottled and fiddleback.

5. Rotary--Ash (Tamo).

6. Burl--Maidou, two-piece matched.]

Unit V.--FURNITURE WOODS--THEIR ORIGIN AND USE

VALUE AND PRICE IN RELATION TO HOME FURNISHINGS

The materials in a piece of furniture, and the way those materials are put together, affect not only its appearance, but also its durability and behavior in service. Appearance and durability both help to determine value. They are factors which usually influence a customer toward or against a purchase. But the customer, unaided, cannot be expected to see and appreciate these factors at their true importance. Therefore a sound knowledge of materials and construction, plus ability to use that knowledge effectively, is essential to the salesperson who wants to take the road to higher earnings.

Every sale is a process of weighing one satisfaction against another. Those who buy from sheer necessity compare price against price, or price against terms. Those who buy for any other reason weigh price against value.

Do not forget that price and value are by no means the same thing. A low price does not automatically constitute, from the customer's viewpoint, a high value. The price of an article is fixed by the dealer. The value of that article is fixed by the buyer, since it depends, not upon what the article costs to make or what is asked for it, but upon what it is worth to her.

Except for the confirmed bargain hunter, no buyer will buy anything, at any price, unless she believes that it will add to her satisfactions. On the other hand, few persons will buy anything, however satisfactory, unless they believe it to be worth the price. It follows, as a fundamental rule of salesmanship that price is almost never the first consideration in the mind of the buyer, but that it is almost always the second consideration. For this reason, few sales can be completed without a demonstration of value.

YOUR OWN BUYING HABITS

Study your own buying habits, and you will see that you seldom make a purchase on the basis of price alone. Always you consider value. Consciously or otherwise, you compare the satisfaction you hope to gain against the price you are asked to pay. You like a bargain, but you recognize that low price, by itself, does not constitute a bargain.

TWO STAGES IN SELLING

The buying habits of the great majority of your customers are no different than your own. People generally will not buy a piece of furniture at any price unless they first believe, of their own initiative or as the result of your efforts, that it will afford them satisfaction, for their own use. Having found such a piece, they still will refuse to buy it until they also become convinced that its value measured in terms of their own satisfactions, equals or exceeds the price.

Thus the average sale consists of two stages:

First, helping the customer find the merchandise that meets her needs and satisfies her tastes, at the price she can afford to pay (not, necessarily, the price she desires, expects, or has expressed a willingness, to pay).

Second, convincing her that the article is a good value for the price.

A prevalent fault among even experienced furniture salespersons is the failure to deal adequately with the first stage--that of finding out what the customer wants. With interior decorators and many drapery salespersons the second stage--demonstration of value--is more often neglected. Moreover, much business is lost by men who reverse the logical process, and begin their demonstration of the value of an article before their customer has tentatively accepted it as adapted to her own needs and tastes.

On the other hand, innumerable sales are sacrificed through reliance upon mere assertion of value, or upon discounts or marked-down prices, with a consequent failure to deliver, at the end, a convincing demonstration of value. In such a demonstration construction and materials will occupy the spotlight.

CONSTRUCTION LESS INTERESTING TO WOMEN THAN MATERIALS

American women are not too much interested, as a rule, in the construction of the articles they buy. This is not because they regard sound construction as unimportant, but because they have been taught to take it more or less for granted. Their chief concern in any product lies in what it will do for them, and they do not care a great deal about how that result is insured. An analysis of magazine advertising will reveal the fact that construction is rarely used as an advertising appeal; a count of several current issues indicates about 1 case in 20.

There is a much wider interest in materials, including furniture woods and the floor covering, drapery, and upholstery fabrics; though even here the primary concern of the great majority of buyers is with the effect of these materials upon their homes and themselves rather than with the materials as such. According to an industry survey, 6 women out of 100 have no interest in furniture; 61 are interested in it primarily as a means of making their homes more attractive; 16 are chiefly interested in furniture woods; 14 in style or appearance; and 3 in construction.

HOW THIS ATTITUDE OF MIND AFFECTS OUR INTERESTS

The widespread disposition of women to take construction and materials for granted tends to reduce emphasis upon quality, forces prices toward unnecessarily low levels, and cuts down volume and profits. It encourages the production of poor merchandise, thereby undermining public confidence in furniture and furniture dealers.

A sound knowledge both of materials and of construction will help demonstrate the superior value of more costly merchandise when such merchandise lies within the customer's buying power. This knowledge, properly used, will of course enable sales to be speeded up, a larger number of customers to be waited on, and a larger percentage of sales to be made. Even when the salesman is emphasizing woods and fabrics, the materials of which home furnishings are made, he must win the customer's confidence in the quality of construction, the craftsmanship with which these materials are put together, if he would effectively minimize what to him is price resistance.

PRINCIPAL FURNITURE WOODS

In all periods of high civilization men have felt a deep interest in the furniture woods. The sheer beauty of these woods, their association in sentiment and legend with the noble trees of many lands, their never-ending, never-repeating variations of figure and shading, the romantic stories of their journeyings by ship or caravan from the far ends of the earth--these things always have delighted men and women of taste.

Undoubtedly they who sell furniture know too little about the furniture woods, talk too little about them, make far too little use of their powerful appeal to the eye and the emotions. If they can learn to know them intimately, and to regard them, not as merchandise merely, but as something fine and nobly beautiful, they cannot fail to inspire widespread admiration and desire for ownership.

A LIST OF THE LEADING FURNITURE WOODS

In appendix D, page 255, will be found a brief account of leading furniture woods. Most of these woods are used today, and many of them will be found in your stock. Ours is an age which takes great delight in colorful and beautifully figured woods. An astonishing variety of new species has come into comparatively recent use as the result of exploration in Africa, Australia, and the more remote and difficult areas of Central and South America. Salespersons are strongly urged, through this and other sources, to become familiar with the leading furniture woods in order to possess the background necessary to arouse appreciation of the beauty, distinction, and rarity of the woods used in furniture manufacture and to convey an adequate sense of the time, skill, and expense necessary to make these lovely woods available in strong and enduring form for the modern home.

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