Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 127

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A Seattle man worked out the following plan.

He called upon the managers of half a dozen or more of the 5 cent motion-picture houses and told them if they would sell him tickets at one-half the regular price, to be paid for in cash, in lots of 500 or more, he could greatly increase the attendance at their theatres, as the tickets would not cost the holders anything, and everybody who had free tickets would be sure to come.

Practically all of those approached accepted this offer, and then he had several thousand coupons printed, at a cost of 50 cents per 1,000, and used a special tint of paper to prevent counterfeiting.

Thus armed, he next called upon a number of merchants with a proposition that, for $1.25, he would give them 100 of these coupons, twenty-five of the 5 cent admission tickets, and an attractive show-card calling attention to the fact that he was offering his cash customers free motion-picture tickets. The twenty-five tickets alone, at their face value, were worth the amount he asked for the entire outfit.

Most merchants were glad to give a discount of 5 cents on each $1.00 cash purchase, as it had a tendency to convert many credit customers into cash buyers, and the favorable publicity it gave was worth a good deal. He gave one coupon with each 25-cent cash purchase, four for a $1.00 purchase, and these four coupons entitled their holder to a free 5-cent theatre ticket. He gave out, on an average, 100 of these coupons and twenty-five tickets each day, with cash purchases amounting in all to $25.

The young man’s profit on each 100 coupons, accompanied by twenty-five of the 5 cent tickets, was 40 cents, or $2.40 a week for each merchant giving out 100 coupons a day. This amounted to $124.80 a year. Twenty-five merchants therefore netted him $3,120 a year, while fifty merchants as regular customers would net him $6,240, and 100 merchants, $12,480.