Princess of the 19th Century Department Store - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

In the original Daisy’s memories, this Mr. Lobit was terribly stingy in business. Tricks like short-weighting customers were common at his shop.

Every now and then, a customer who had eaten something bad would go to his store demanding an explanation, and Mr. Lobit would insist the food had not come from him.

Because of that, most of his customers were passersby. He did one-off business.

He had no more regular customers than she did.

Daisy thought that her shop’s one small advantage was its many familiar faces. All the more reason, then, to maintain quality while using thoughtful little details to raise customer loyalty.

Although Lobit had never offended her personally, the neighborhood only had so many customers to go around.

For a shop to survive, business was a zero-sum game. If you did not advance, you fell behind.

She took some yellowed old letter paper from the cabinet, then brought out red and black ink. Picking up a quill, she began writing something in fits and starts.

There was not much foot traffic in the afternoon either, only a few scattered customers.

If there were fewer customers, then she would have to rely on her own efforts to raise the average sale.

Daisy pulled herself together and served each customer in turn, making sure not a single person left empty-handed. By the time she heard the clock chime, it was six in the evening.

At that moment, Mary was making separate trips to return the babies she had been caring for to their homes.

Since she did not have to grit her teeth and watch the shop today, she had spent the whole afternoon washing the family’s accumulated dirty clothes and cleaning the rooms and stairs.

She had also baked a batch of bread for dinner.

Daisy counted all the small change she had earned that afternoon, stuffed it into the cabinet, and locked it away.

Not only could she smell bread drifting out of the kitchen, it seemed even the neighbors next door had begun cooking.

The smell of sausages, bacon, and butter filled the air. For the poor who lived here, dinner was the heartiest meal of the day, a custom that had continued for two hundred years.

Outside, the alley had grown dark. The sky was deep blue, and several women with lipstick on their mouths and curlers in their hair walked across the snow, heading straight into the tavern across the way at dinnertime.

Daisy knew these women lived pitiable lives. They could only solicit customers in places like this, earning next to nothing, and still had to wash with chemical solutions that were terribly harmful to the body.

But they never saved money. They lived in nearby apartments and paid rent week by week.

Whenever they earned a little, they spent it all on gin, snacks, cosmetics, dressmaking, and cigarettes.

Most of the snacks in Daisy’s cabinet were sold to them as well.

Daisy looked toward the little tailor shop diagonally opposite. The owner also made his living from these women’s business.

The tailor’s surname was Herlot. He was tall and bald, with excellent workmanship.

His wife, Mrs. Herlot, counted as half a businesswoman herself. She usually lent money and extended credit to these women, collecting interest in return.

Mrs. Herlot had a son and a daughter, and the two children were Penny’s classmates.

Daisy caught sight of the two Herlot children returning home with satchels on their backs.

Sure enough, Penny came home not long after.

When Penny had gone out, she had been wearing a long green dress, a wool coat, an apricot-yellow shawl wrapped around her, a brimmed bonnet-style lace-starched cloth cap on her head, and a pair of tall boots on her feet.

In this era, women-whether ladies in palaces or laundresses in slums, adults or children-always wore long dresses, skirt supports, and brimmed little hats when going out.

Penny entered the house, took off her outer things, and came up to the counter to look at the paper packets of biscuits Daisy had prepared.

Each packet weighed half a pound and had two layers of wrapping, inside and out. A small price tag hung from the hemp string, marked with the date, weight, flavor, and price. On the outermost layer of paper, the words “Nash Grocery” were written in beautiful cursive.

But Penny was far more interested in the fragrant biscuits. She crowded closer, hoping to wait around for a few crumbs to satisfy her craving.

Seeing this, Daisy grabbed a handful of biscuits and was about to give them to her.
Penny was thrilled and suspicious at the same time, but she still reached out with both hands to take them. Then Daisy suddenly stopped.

“If you want the cookies, you have to promise to do something for me.”

Penny’s eyes widened. She knew there was no such thing as a free treat.

Still, after thinking it over for a moment, she quickly nodded.

Only then did Daisy hand over the cookies. Then she turned around and took out a stack of yellowed stationery.

On the paper, the first line was written in bold, flowing script: Nash Grocery.

Below it were two columns of product names, with the prices marked in red ink.

Penny took the papers and began mumbling through them.

“Soap, one penny each, two pennies for three, three pennies for four…”

After that came sugar, salt, flour, cookies, butter… as well as ink, stationery, sealing wax, and other daily necessities, complete with prices and promotions.

Holding the slips of paper, Penny stared until her head spun. They looked a little like flyers.

“Tomorrow morning, slip these into the neighbors’ window cracks, door cracks, and mailboxes. Do it properly. I’ll be checking.”

“If you do a good job tomorrow, there’ll be more cookies.”

Penny had the day off tomorrow. She nodded solemnly, then carried off both the cookies and the stack of papers.

A while later, Mr. Nash and Fred returned.

Fred Nash was a hulking man in his thirties with red hair, a full beard, strong limbs, a simple mind, and a good temper.

Father and son pushed a handcart with a basket along the alley at an easy pace.

Inside the basket were several iron milk cans, each holding several dozen liters. Altogether, there were a few hundred liters of milk to be delivered door to door to customers who had subscribed.

Getting back by dinnertime already counted as early.

The two of them pushed the cart to the door, carried the milk cans inside, and set them against the wall. Then they unloaded the cart and squeezed it in beside the already cramped front entrance.

Even after getting home, they could not rest. Father and son went into the kitchen, took out the household wooden buckets, and headed to the public pump to fetch water for daily use.

Fred came out of the kitchen carrying a wooden bucket. When he looked up, he noticed that the shelves seemed to have been rearranged. They looked completely different from when he had left that morning.

Every nook and cranny had been scrubbed clean, and the goods were arranged so neatly they might have been printed in place.

At that moment, Daisy was still by the counter, tallying the day’s small accounts with great focus. Fred did not even dare disturb her.

Lisa had a small account book that had always been kept in the cabinet. In the past, she had balanced the accounts every day. It was a good habit.

Daisy held a quill, dipped it in ink, and continued recording in the blank space at the back.

There had been a total of fifteen customers today, only a quarter of the usual number. Pitifully few.

Yet the day’s turnover had reached three hundred pennies, with an average transaction value of twenty pennies.

Looking at turnover alone, this was a level the shop had only reached in the past when business had been at its best and the store was packed with customers.

The improvement was entirely thanks to her exceptionally attentive counter service today, as well as her sales pitch.

Daisy had calculated it very professionally. The shop’s profit margin on sales was twenty-five percent.

With sales of three hundred pennies, the profit was about seventy-five pennies.

If every day were like today, then the monthly profit would be two thousand two hundred pennies, which meant a net profit of nine pounds.

That was even more profitable than when business had been good before.

But if she could continue increasing sales and raise the wholesale volume of their purchases, the cost of goods could be pushed down further, and the profit margin could even reach thirty percent.

A little shop might not look like much, but if run well, it could help her save up her first pot of gold.

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