No More Jobbing

Last October when Marshall Field & Co. picked a professor for chairman it was clear that the big Chicago store was in for something of a revolution. Chairman James O. McKinsey was hired to carry out improvements suggested by his management counsel firm after a long survey of Field's wholesale division (TIME, Oct. 21). Last week tall, professorial Mr. McKinsey announced his first new policy: no more jobbing. Henceforth Field will wholesale only what it manufactures or imports. Mr. McKinsey is not particularly concerned about the swank State Street store, nor Field's other stores, including the Davis in Chicago and Frederick & Nelson in Seattle. Last year the retail division reported an operating profit of $1,798,000. But on manufacturing and wholesaling Field lost $1,142,000, which, with bond interest, tipped Field into the red for the year. By eliminating jobbing Field will lose perhaps 30% of its wholesale volume. How much of Field's total annual sales of $100,000,000 is represented by wholesaling is a trade secret, though in current dry-goods economics jobbing is certainly neither very profitable nor very promising. Automobiles and good roads now carry consumers to shopping centres where stores are big enough to buy directly from manufacturers. Since Marshall Field is a big manufacturer of textiles, rugs, bedding, hosiery, underwear, lingerie, gloves, handkerchiefs, curtains, cotton dresses etc., Chairman McKinsey was simply playing a strong merchandising trend.* Dropped from the Field wholesale line will be jobbed items like notions, neckwear, jewelry, toys, furniture.

*Marshall Field has some 30 mills, controls 3% of the country's cotton spindles, is a leader in gloves and handkerchiefs but supplies a relatively small proportion of its big store's high-priced stocks.

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