THE USE OF MOTORS IN THE FURNISHING TRADE.
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ROM time to time in The Commer cial Motor illustrations have appeared depicting the application of novel advertising ideas, to the motor vehicle. There are some trades—or rather tradesmen—who eschew the practice, because, to put it bluntly, using the motor to advertise their business would have anything but the desired effect.
Maybe the reader will have noticed at regular intervals firms such as the hire-purchase (or, to put it more euphemistically, the ".cash out of income") furnishing companies announce in their. Press advertisements, "Goods delivered by private motorvan." The purpose-of this is to ensure the privacy of their client's business. In almost every big centre of population there are a number of firms whose resources have been developed by a readiness to accommodate customers by allowing them to pay weekly or monthly instead of the usual "0.0.1)," These concerns are well known, especially in the poorer working-class localities, where the delivery of a load of furniture at a private residence is apt to stimulate the speculative genius of neighbourly busybodies anxious to " know all about it."
These' were some of the facts that transpired' in an interview with one of our correspondents had with the representative of a. hire-purchase furnishing firm, from whom service data were solicited concerning the operations of a handy-sized fleet of motors.
" At one time," said our informant, "we used to hire all the transport we iequired—horse-drawn wagons supplied by a contractor for local journeys; for longer journeys we used the railway. When deliveries of furniture were made no one had any clue as to where it was .bought. Our experience is that, when customers do not pay cash, they like the fact that they are paying weekly to be regarded as private. Hence 'to advertise ourselves on our motors would be at the Sacrifice of the best iaterests .of our customers. We bought a fleet of motors two years ago, and they are .operated in the joint interests of two other associated companies. They ' tell no story,' but they do the work, and that is all we need say about them."
This little fleet, composed of Albions and Fords, consists of vehicles with entirely plain bodies. They are also• lutely devoid of lettering for the reasons explained. This is one of the few cases where the motors tell their story by " saying nothing."
On the other hand. tthere are Scores
of furnishingfirms doing cash out of income" and a ready cash .trade employing big fleets who consider that the tastefully designed advertising schemes on their motors is a good selling point. The connection between the furniture and the timber 'trades is very intimate, and from Liverpool, one of the leading timber ports of the confitry, logs are despatched-to the furniture factories in all parts of the North Country and Midlands. At some of the Liverpool docks great logs af timber are transported from point -to point by saeans ef eieetrie trucks and bogies