Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 98

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A California man who had formerly been in the wall-paper business and found himself entirely wiped out by a fire, decided to make another start by using his home as the basis of operations for supplying his patrons with wall paper at very much less than the usual prices, the profit in that community being sufficiently large to permit great reductions in even the best grades.

A large manufacturer gladly sent him a book of samples of all kinds of wall paper, and with this he visited hundreds of homes, where he exhibited the various styles. The prices he named were far below those of the down-town stores, as he had no rent or clerk to pay. He took a surprisingly large number of orders, and realized a handsome profit on each sale. Many of his customers felt they could put on the paper themselves, but in those cases where he did this work for them, he charged a fair price, and soon found he had all the work he could possibly do. As his patronage increased, he found it necessary to employ a young man to do the papering in those cases where it was required, while his entire time was devoted to the taking of orders. He had excellent taste in the matter of harmonious decorations, and made many sales through showing the housewives the artistic effects that could be produced by selecting the design best adapted to the furnishings of the home.

At the end of the first year, he found his profits were much greater than those of any year he had conducted his store, and this without the investment of a single dollar.