Kennewick’s Merchants Are Losing the Town to the Mail-Order Catalogue

We got a bundle of old papers at the Courier-Reporter office this week with which to start fires in the morning. Being somewhat short of reading matter, we started looking them over and found in the bunch copies of nearly all the weeklies published in the nearby towns. We started perusing these in rather a critical state of mind, comparing them with our own local weekly. After a careful examination of a dozen or fifteen, we decided that our own paper is without exception the best of the lot. This but strengthens us in the belief which we have always held, that the Courier-Reporter is the best small-town weekly which we have ever seen. That this is the case reflects great credit upon the publishers, as they are doing it, not because of the support given them by the business men of Kennewick, but in spite of it. A paper necessarily depends for its support upon the advertising given it by the various businesses of the town, and while some of the storekeepers of Kennewick are good advertisers, a goodly percentage of them are not.

We have here in Kennewick five stores handling groceries and the last issue of the Courier-Reporter carried an ad for but two of them. We have two drug stores and in the same issue appeared the ad of but one. We have two dry goods and furnishing stores and we failed to find either of them represented in the advertising columns. Our shoe store was likewise absent from the advertising columns as was also the clothing stores. In view of the showing made by the advertising columns, we again say we fail to see how the local paper can make the showing it does with the indifferent support given it by the business men of Kennewick.

In line with the above thoughts it also occurs to us that the merchants of Kennewick might look to their failure to let the people know that they are in business and what they have in stock as a reason for much of the mail order business that is daily going out of town. The merchant who has a complete stock, priced right, and who through his regular weekly advertisement lets the people of the community know what he has and what the prices are, need have but little reason to fear the catalogue houses. Exorbitant prices and failure to carry in stock what the people want are largely responsible also for the large mail order business. Let us quote two instances. We have a friend who wanted a new cover for his Ford. He inquired at a local dealer who said it would cost $15. This appeared too high and he appealed to a mail order catalog with the result that he got the material for the cover for $2.40 and spent about two hours putting it on, saving on the one transaction $12.60.

Again, we wanted a pair of rubber boots for the “old man” and a pair each for the two boys. They could not be had in town so we simply looked in the catalog and fired in an order, getting the goods back in four days. The business men sometimes criticize the farmer for sending away for so much stuff but it seems to us that Mr. Business Man is more at fault than anyone else.