Cash & Hurry

"The one thing we know . . . best is how to run a cash & carry business." There are no charge accounts or sales slips, no alterations or deliveries in Nathan ("Ned") Ohrbach's book on how to run a clothing store. If a dress is not sold in ten days, Ned knocks it down to cost; after another week he cuts it to half the cost (but seldom has to). Last year his two Ohrbach's, Inc. stores -- on Manhattan's shrill 14th Street, and in Newark, N.J. -- made a handsome profit of $1,500,000 on close to $40 million in sales.

Last week Ned Ohrbach stepped out in new company: he opened a store on the "Miracle Mile" of Los Angeles' snazzy Wilshire Boulevard (in Prudential's big new building). To strike a spark, he had stocked the store with cotton dresses at $1, woolen dresses at $3.95, nylons for 97-c- a pair. Just nine minutes after the store opened, he had to shut the doors again. Some 20,000 shoppers had clogged the aisles and escalators. Less than two hours later Ohrbach's was on the air with fervent pleas of "Please, please don't come to Ohrbach's today."

Upside-Down Paintings. Vienna-born Ned Ohrbach, an immigrant's son, started as a clerk, worked up to buyer for Ehrich Bros, department store. He founded Ohrbach's in 1923, a block from Manhattan's famed, price-cutting S. Klein's.

Ned never held sales, never bragged about markdowns. He thinks they merely show that the first price was too high. His ads plugged the store rather than special articles or prices. To get away from the item-packed type of ads, Ned went as far afield as a series of abstract illustrations. Though one of his admen grumbled, "We could have turned them upside down and run them again the following week," they brought the customers.

Merchandising in the Stomach. In Los Angeles, as in Manhattan, Ohrbach's has expensive as well as bargain dresses --up to $385. But they still cost far less than similar models in most shops. To get a mass market, top designers gladly sell their clothes to Ohrbach's, but make sure their labels are removed.

Recently Ned's son Jerome, 41, who "imbibed merchandising in my guts since I was twelve," has been urging Ned to try the Ohrbach formula in a dozen other cities. A banking syndicate is ready to back such a chain if the Los Angeles store succeeds. But no matter how many stores are opened, Ohrbach's intends to make customers pay cash. Says Ned: "The more billing the less cooing."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.