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More About Commercial Motors and Coronation Time.

16th March 1911, Page 1
16th March 1911
Page 1
Page 1, 16th March 1911 — More About Commercial Motors and Coronation Time.
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The, official ,dates for numerous pre-Coronation events, including those which are chosen. for the several Imperial Conferences in London, will, as we have several times insisted during the past three months, of necessity bring many important Colonial and Dominion visitors to this country before the end of May. All of them, we know, will remain over here for the great event of the 22nd June—the Coronation of King George. After that, and very quickly too, jaded and much-entertained guests will seek respite from the exacting if unique round of public functions, inspections, meetings, and hurried trips here, there, and everywhere. It almost goes without saying, too,. that any post-Coronation fixture, apart from, perhaps, one or two on a grand scale, like the Naval Review, will merely provide an anti-climax.

By reason of the King's patronage and official support in person, the great show of the Royal Agricultural Society, at Norwich, will stand out as the exception during a period of inevitable exhaustion

and lassitude. Up-to-date and approved motors will be on view, and, by a happy coincidence, but still with due observance of our practice for the. past six years, it so falls that the issue of TOE COMMERCIAL MOTOR which will contain the Royal-show report (dated the 29th June) can fittingly be produced to contain full and complete illustrated references to the widespread use of commercial motors at Coronation time. These particulars, of course, will he of the greatest interest to Dominion and Overseas readers, but they will also convey exact facts to Colonial visitors who are in this country.

For the foregoing and oiler reasons, we have decided that our issue of the 29th June shall he in the nature of a Colonial and Export number. It will, however, differ materially from our usual New-Year issues of this class. Much of the space will be devoted to the first-published report of the commercialmotor, tractor and allied exhibits at Norwich ; asupplement (exclusively for Colonial circulation) will reproduce our report upon the fifth annual parade of the C.M.U.A., which report will already have appeared rn our issue of the 8th June ; a special section will be devote.d to the topical feature of "Commercial Motors at Coronation Time."

In this preliminary announcement, there is occasion for us to state but little in detail. We desire to add, however, in conclusion, that we have decided, in recognition of friendly suggestions from valued subscribers, to publish the " Coronation Time" soction in the whole of the issue, both for home circulation and for postage to the Colonies_ Several thousand extra copies will be printed by us, and, of these, the necessary proportion will be delivered by hand to the temporary London addresses of official and semiofficial Coronation-year visitors, and also to selected business men and traders from the Colonies of whose coming London movements we have advices and very many of whom will have been at the parade, whilst not fewer than 2,000 copies—in these instances with the reprint of the Parade Report added as a supplement—will be mailed by us direct to owners and likely owners in all parts of the Empire overseas.

Keeping in Touch with "Removals."

We, in our last issue, drew attention to an unsuspected, yet undoubted, advantage which accrues from the use of motor-delivery vans, viz., the consequential reduction of the " package suspense account." We may, therefore, with advantage, here refer to another substantial gain for which the power-driven vehicle is directly responsible. In all large towns particularly, and in some small ones occasionally, a cause of much anxiety to storekeepers and tradesmen of all kinds is the liability of regular customers to change their

places of abode with but-little warning. In these days of constantly-improving travelling facilities, and of rapid development of new residential districts in all directions, both around the Metropolis and in the vicinity of great provincial centres, the bulk of the population is a frequently-shifting one. Families, nowadays, do not live for generations in one thoroughfare ; the three-years tenancy of household property represents the limit of the length of residence in any one district of many thousands of families in these times. Many a tradesman will readily testify to the fact that he cannot retain his customers as he used to do. Accounts of many years' standing are not so numerous in the books of large suburban tradesmen as was formerly the case, and certain far-sighted storekeepers have not been slow to realize that a means is at hand to maintain a hold upon customers who have moved away from their immediate neighbourhood. The persuasive arts of the salesman and of the outdoor representative are amply seconded by the information that "we can supply goods to you quite as well in your new home ten miles away, as we could when you lived near to our premises." The innate conservatism of the average householder does the rest. As a consequence of this development, it has become a common thing to see a Brixton draper's. van delivering in Beckenham, or a Kensington provision dealer's goods being carted to Hampstead or to Hampton Court, and the same thing is happening around some large provincial cities. The suburban trader is able, now, thanks to the commercial motor, to keep a remarkable hold upon his oftremoving customers, and actually to invade the recognized territory of distant competitors. It is, indeed, a new phase of business, for the suburban tradesmen to be able to retain custom this way.

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People: George
Locations: Norwich, London

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