y their purchases of coffee and tea. This means that if coffees
and teas are bought from the wagon-route distributer and the chain
store, the balance of a family's order is "shopped around."

To meet this competition, the best authorities agree that the
independent grocer should feature coffee in every practical way, such as
soliciting coffee trade from each customer that enters the store; give
up offering coffee on a price basis, and make up his own blends from
good quality growths; perhaps make up his own brand and push it at every
opportunity; display coffee artistically, with frequent changes of
layouts; and have occasional store demonstrations. He should see that
the coffee is roasted properly, and that it is always fresh; that the
selling effort is not expended on the lowest-priced blend, but on a
grade that can be recommended for cup merit. This should be a leader,
but a lower-price coffee could be carried to suit the trade that buys on
price. Persistent efforts should be made to educate the last-named class
of customers to use the better grades, which in the end are cheaper and
give better satisfaction. In short, the grocer should work consistently
to establish a vogue for his leader blend on the basis of merit.

[Illustration: A BETTER-CLASS AMERICAN GROCERY INTERIOR

Showing the coffee bins in orderly array, and the electric coffee
grinder]

_Profits and Costs_

Because of its influence on other grocery items, coffee can often be
sold at a close margin of profit, particularly if a competitor's store
or wagons are cutting into a grocer's neighborhood trade. Twenty-five
percent is recommended as a reasonable gross profit on coffee in most
cases, although some grocers make less, and not a few make more; the
range being usually from twenty to thirty-nine percent. The independent
dealer should meet chain-store competition in coffee on a price basis,
making a special on a superior grade and figuring to get not more than
three cents profit per pound, like his competitor. A bag of roasted
coffee will bring back three dollars gain, and the cash to pay for
another--and the grocer has kept his customers, ninety percent of whom,
theoretically, will have bought their other food supplies from him. As a
matter of fact, in the last year of the World War retailers showed a
tendency to demand cash on sales of all grocery items. This practise
reduces the cost of operation and allows the storekeeper to reduce his
prices. A