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Managing Door-to-Door Sales of Vacuum Cleaners in Interwar Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Peter Scott
Peter Scott
Affiliation:
PETER SCOTT is professor of international business history at theHenley Business School, University of Reading.
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Abstract

Door-to-door selling was a key factor behind the particularly rapid interwar diffusion of vacuum cleaners among British households, relative to other “high-ticket” labor-saving appliances. Yet the door-to-door system incurred both high distribution costs and considerable controversy—owing to widespread sharp practice. Employers enticed salesmen through grossly inflated claims regarding earnings, which were in fact insufficient for most salesmen to make an acceptable living. This led many salesmen to engage in their own sharp practices—which eventually brought this form of marketing into disrepute.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 82 , Issue 4: A Special Issue on Salesmanship , Winter 2008 , pp. 761 - 788
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2008

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References

1 While door-to-door selling was much more strongly developed in the United States than in Britain by the First World War, its widespread use for selling branded durable goods also dates from the 1920s. See Friedman, Walter A., Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), 193.Google Scholar

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30 Cited in Political and Economic Planning, Market for Household Appliances, 26–27.

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43 Harrods advertisement, Times, 18 Nov. 1920, 9, col. E, stating that the store hosted daily demonstrations of the Hoover cleaner.

44 Memorandum on electrically operated vacuum cleaners.

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46 Harrods Ltd., notes on accounts for half year ended 31 July 1936, p. 2×4, on Kendal Milne & Co. and its Hoover trade, 10 Aug. 1936, HF9/3/6, Harrods Company Archive.

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53 “Vac-Trie Vacuum Cleaners” (display advertisement), Times, 27 Nov. 1934, 20, col. E.

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62 Smallpeice, Of Comets and Queens, 13.

63 For estimates for the United States, see Friedman, Birth of a Salesman, 183; Buell, “Door-to-Door Selling,” 117.

64 Smallpeice, Of Comets and Queens, 14. Contemporary sources indicate that it was common for salesmen laid off by one company to find employment later with another, though companies did not usually rehire salesmen whom they had previously dismissed.

65 Chief Industrial Advisor's file regarding Hoover's proposal to set up U.K. production, note, signed C.L.W., 8 Feb. 1932, and “Confidential Report” from Hoover, 27 May 1932, both BT56/49, NA. It is not clear whether the value given for sales included accessories and replacement parts as well as cleaners.

66 Smallpeice, Of Comets and Queens, 14.

67 Smith, “Economic Future of House-to-House Selling,” 327; Buell, “Door-to-Door Selling,” 118.

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73 Buell, “Door-to-Door Selling,” 117.

74 Smallpeice, Of Comets and Queens, 14.

75 A.B.C. [pseud.], “Sales Representative,”863–64.

76 MacLaren-Ross, Of Love and Hunger, 123–24.

77 French, “Commercials, Careers, and Culture,” 354–56.

78 Day survey 379, 12 July 1937, MOA.

79 MacLaren-Ross, Collected Memoirs, 186. This sales pitch was paralleled in Hoover's promotional literature, e.g., Hoover Ltd., “Dirt—and How to Get Rid of It,” leaflet, n.d., c. 1930s, copy privately held by the author.

80 Interview with Sam Tobin.

81 Hoover Co., Steps to the Hoover Sale (North Canton, Oh., 1936).Google Scholar

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83 Ibid.; interview with Sam Tobin.

84 Interview with Sam Tobin.

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid.

87 MacLaren-Ross, Of Love and Hunger, 7.

88 Friedman, Birth of a Salesman, 42.

89 Ibid., 194. This was one of the “seven laws” of sales management set down by Richard H. Grant and based on the teachings of John H. Patterson at NCR.

90 Day survey 379, 12 May 1937, MOA; interview with Sam Tobin; A.B.C, [pseud.], “Sales Representative,” 864.

91 Interview with Howard Stone, conducted by Ted Haley, 7 Sept. 1983, SA 20/1/48/1, Essex Sound and Video Archive, Essex Record Office.

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99 A.B.C, [pseud.], “Sales Representative,” 864; MacLaren-Ross, Of Love and Hunger, 114.

100 Collection of Hoover awards made to W. H. Newsome, held privately by the author.

101 Interview with Cyril K. Jaegar, conducted by the author on 21 Aug. 2006.

102 Day survey 425, 12 June 1937, MOA.

103 Day survey 379, 12 July 1937, MOA.

104 Friedman, Birth of a Salesman, 50.

105 Hoover, Fabulous Dustpan, 142–43; Furnival, Suck, Don't Blow, 17.

106 Interview with Sam Tobin. See also MacLaren-Ross, Of Love and Hunger, 36.

107 A.B.C. [pseud.], “Sales Representative,” 864.

108 “Intensive Door-to-Door Salesmanship,” Hire Traders Record (June 1936): 3.

109 Interview with Cyril K. Jaeger, conducted by the author on 21 Aug. 2006.

110 Interview with Sam Tobin.

111 MacLaren-Ross, Of Love and Hunger, 4.

112 Day survey 425, 12 June 1937, MOA.

113 A.B.C, [pseud.], “Sales Representative,” 864.

114 Interview with Sam Tobin. An identical scam was practiced by salesmen of Unilever's U.S. subsidiary; Groff, Observations of Management, 4–5.

115 MacLaren-Ross, Collected Memoirs, 109.

116 “Vacuum Cleaner Fraud,” Hire Traders Record (1 Oct. 1936): 8.

117 For example, “Penny a Month in H.P. Claims,” Hire Purchase Journal (May 1938): 8.

118 “Just 120 Years to Pay Instalments!” Hire Traders Record (Mar. 1937): 5.

119 Groff, Observations of Management, 6.

120 “Commission on Bogus Orders,” Hire Traders Record (l Feb. 1936): 4–5.

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122 See Scott, Peter, “The Twilight World of Interwar British Hire Purchase,” Past & Present 177 (2002): 195–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

123 “Hoover Limited,” Times, 16 Mar. 1939, 25, col. G.

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125 Political and Economic Planning, Market for Household Appliances, 211–12, 355.