Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 87

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She was a druggist’s wife, and had some excellent ideas of her own, besides, she knew how to put them to practical use.

While the prescription business of the store was large and profitable, the soda fountain, a fine large one with every modern feature of equipment, was not making good, and there were seven other soda fountains in the town of some 2,000 inhabitants. Here was the wife’s opportunity.

The drug store was a large and attractive place and she decided upon the following plan of action: She installed four private booths, covering the partitions with green burlap, with burlap curtains on the outside. Putting wire over the top of each booth, she covered them with paper flowers, which she made herself. The covering of one booth was of yellow roses, one of American beauty roses, one of pumpkin blossoms and one of lilies. In the center of each booth she placed an electric light, with a shade to match the flowers of the ceiling, also an electric bell.

This novel and attractive arrangement proved very popular, and rapidly brought a large number of patrons who preferred to have sodas and ice cream served in the privacy of the tastefully decorated booths rather than to sit at tables in the open store. However, she was continually planning on some new feature to make the place talked about, and she turned her attention to the fountain itself. She built a large canopy over the fountain, and covered it with 300 crepe-paper oranges and 3,000 leaves, which produced a very striking and pleasing effect. To still further stimulate interest, she issued neatly designed and printed circulars, particularly when she had some novelty to give away, and thus kept it constantly before the public.

That the idea was a good one, is shown by the fact that, whereas, the receipts from the soda fountain had formerly ranged from $6 to $10 a day, the carrying out of her new plan increased its revenue from $18 to $30 a day, and placed the store far in the lead of all the other drug stores in the town.