he wagon man delivers the coffee, and is usually held
responsible for the customer fulfilling the agreement, and is expected
to secure repeat orders with other premiums.

[Illustration: A PREMIUM TEA AND COFFEE DEALER'S DISPLAY ROOM

This is the headquarters store of the Geo. F. Hellick Co., Easton, Pa.,
a successful wagon coffee distributer. The premium merchandise is shown
in the foreground: the sales counter, coffee mill, and display of teas,
coffees, extracts, spices, etc., being in the right background]

The importance of the wagon-route plan of coffee-retailing is shown by
the fact that in 1921 there were six hundred houses of this kind in the
United States; and it was estimated that they distributed eight percent
of the total amount of the coffee consumed in the country. The biggest
company was capitalized at $16,000,000, and operated eleven hundred
wagons. Most of the wagon-route concerns were operating in the central
states, practically one-third of them covering the states of Illinois,
Wisconsin, Indiana, and Iowa. Pennsylvania is also a wagon-route-dealer
center.

[Illustration: TYPICAL CHAIN-STORE INTERIOR EQUIPMENT

This is the Atlantic & Pacific Co.'s store in Rhinebeck, New York. There
are nearly 5,000 other stores like it in the United States]

The premium wagon-route distributers have an organization called the
National Retail Tea and Coffee Merchants' Association. It is composed of
126 members--all of whom use premiums--who operate over two thousand
wagons. The largest single wagon-route operator is the Jewel Tea Company
of Chicago. The members of this organization claimed to have served more
than 2,000,000 families in 1920.

In the chain-store system of merchandising we see the opposite extreme
of coffee retailing. The wagon-route man features his delivery service;
while in the chain-store plan, all customers must pay cash and carry
home their parcels. Though the earliest established chain stores gave
premiums, the practise has now been generally abandoned. Roasting,
blending, and packing coffee in a large central plant, the chain-store
operator advertises that he can sell coffee at a price lower than his
competitors. As a rule, only one grade of coffee is offered for sale.
While it is generally a good medium value, many consumers prefer better
quality and go to the independent grocer for it. Others patronize the
grocer because of his convenient delivery service, and because he gives
credit on