Are There too Many Retailers?

Abstract

expensive step in the whole marketing process, it is in the retail field that there is the greatest opportunity for cutting down marketing costs. Students of marketing have come to realize that the general organization of the marketing system is sound, and that middlemen exist for the simple reason that they furnish the most economical method of performing the necessary marketing functions. Realizing that the cost of retailing is relatively high, investigators have turned their eyes in this direction in an attempt to find a solution of the socalled marketing problem. Perhaps the most obvious thing about retailers is their great number. In a large city there may be four or five grocery stores on a single street in one block. In a small town there may be eight or ten grocery stores, whereas two or three stores are all that are necessary to take care of the needs of the community. The immediate conclusion is that there are too many retailers and that this accounts for the high cost of marketing. Thousands of people who have never studied marketing have been expressing this thought for years. During the recent agitation on marketing questions, certain writers have featured this thought in newspapers and in magazine articles as though it were an important dis-