Honest Shoppers

To a sub-convention of the National Retail Dry Goods Association in Chicago last week, President Homer Buckley of Buckley, Dement & Co., Chicago, said: "The theory [that the customer is always right] is sound because 99% of the people are honest. The other 1% takes advantage of the practice and the store may lose on the deal, but the loss is compensated by keeping the others satisfied." Because two years ago 12% of gross volume of department store sales was returned by dissatisfied customers, the University of Pittsburgh is conducting research to learn just who is at fault--customer or merchant. Data so far accumulated indicates that one is wrong as often as the other.