REALITY CHECK: In the midst of Furniture Market, consider mercantile responsibility and constrast with words written 60 years ago

Friend and savvy retailer Jim Gabbert of Gabberts, Minneapolis, is an avowed responsible merchant. Whenever we met, our beards flare in disdain when we speak about most in our industry neglecting to really care for consumers.

Take a break from the hubbub and read what observer Charles F. Shrantz wrote in July 1946 in Furniture Ad Ideas:

Future Promotions Should Stress Better Homes

Speaking generally about our furniture advertising today, it is finally getting on the right track. Now let’s keep it that way.

Today we are doing what we should have been doing for years gone by. We are selling homes, better living. We are selling furniture not just price.

The day will come in the future when we are going to get back into competition. Price then will be of vital importance. Even then however, we can still continue to create a desire for better homes. If we do that we need never sink into the depths of price-consciousness we did during the thirties, regardless of conditions.

If we examine the records of other industries during the depression period particularly those like the automotive and others, we find that they never once ceased to continuously create a desire even though price was a major item.

Those industries never let their designing departments lag. Never did they stop improving style and performance. They used color to the utmost in their advertising. Never stinted on their artwork. Their copy always crackled and their industries progressed in the face of the most disastrous financial crisis in our history. They sold luxuries, automobiles at a profit. In hard times they beat our sales figures fantastically.

BETTER HOMES ARE AND SHOULD ALWAYS BE OF GREATEST IMPORTANCE TO THE HOUSEWIFE. While we watched our immediate competitor in the furniture business and tried to undersell him or keep him from underselling us we let other industries create the desire for and sell luxuries outside the home.

Let us beware of these pitfalls, for similar ones certainly lie ahead. Let us attempt to sell our manufacturers the idea of keeping abreast with advanced designs of merchandise that are saleable. Designs that raise and that keep the interest of the American homemaker alive and conscious of the idea HOME SHOULD BE THE PRIMARY OBJECT IN LIVING. Then let us continue the good start we have begun.

Sell “Better Your Home, Better Your Living” with constant vigilance. Make people want our merchandise to improve their American living standard. Use better illustrations, more carefully prepared, convincing, straightforward copy on furniture that emphasizes comfort, style and beauty; for after all those requisites are human nature’s line of least resistance . . . our best opportunity to serve and cash in.

In response, Jim said, "When will we ever learn?"