The South's Biggest

In the depression, Atlanta had no money to pay its schoolteachers, so city officials went to Walter Henry Rich, president of Rich's Inc., to ask him what to do. He old them: "Pay your teachers with scrip. We'll honor it."

Rich's sold $645,000 worth of goods for scrip. It eventually got its money jack--along with the gratitude of Atlantans. Last week this policy of "What's good for Atlanta is good for Rich's" paid a big dividend. President Rich proudly announced that Rich's had grossed $33,100,000 last year, had become the largest department store in the South.

One Price. Rich's had come a long way since it was founded in 1867 by an 18-year-old Hungarian-born Jew. While other merchants haggled with customers, set a different price for everyone, Morris Rich tagged his merchandise, stuck to a one-price policy. He capitalized on the fact that Rich's was on the wrong side of the tracks to capture the trade of low-salaried Atlantans, snooted the carriage trade. Rich's kept its customers by reversing the slogan of Manhattan's R. H. Macy & Co. ("No one is in debt to Macy's"), whose Davison-Paxon Co. is Rich's chief competitor. Rich's tried to make sure that as many customers as possible were in debt to it, by a liberal credit policy encouraged everyone to keep buying. Some families owed Rich's $100 or more for three generations. Rich's adjustment policy was equally liberal. Once it accepted returns on hundreds of pairs of defective hose sold by rival stores. But it made more on good will than it lost on returned goods. Rich's expanded slowly, till World War II.

Then Walter Rich, who took over in 1926 when his Uncle Morris became chairman, smartly realized that many a big manufacturer would be flooded with orders, that goods would be short. So he sent his buyers scouting the nation for new small supplies, loaded his shelves with scarce goods. Result: Rich's tripled its business, passed onetime bigger stores which had been caught short.

Two Men. A softspoken, imaginative merchandiser, Walter Rich has worked in the store since his graduation from Columbia University. He belittles himself as "just a floorwalker," dislikes bothering with operational details. But he knows how to get along with people. His operational right hand is Executive Vice President Frank Neely, 62. President Rich never acts without an O.K. from his energetic, impatient vice president.

Last week they put the finishing touches to a new plan they both heartily approved: a $5,000,000 construction and expansion program designed to boost Rich's annual sales volume to $50,000,000.

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