The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 3 (July 1, 1932)

90% of Customers Buying British

90% of Customers Buying British

The “Advertiser's Weekly” reports that concrete results of the “Buy British” campaign are now beginning to come in from every part of the country. The results have been collected by means of an impartial shop-to-shop inquiry carried out recently in London. The exhibition of posters similar to the one reproduced in miniature on this page, is another phase of the “Buy British” campaign. These posters are now displayed on the walls of many factories in England and make a definite appeal to employees to “buy New Zealand goods” and thus keep trade within the Empire.

The Bonds of Empire.

The Bonds of Empire.

A multiple grocer's shop in Victoria St. London, reported that 90 per cent. of their customers are asking for Empire goods. A big men's outfitting shop said that 40 per cent. of their customers deliberately ask “Is it British?” A man who had bought dress gloves refused to take them because they were foreign.

Customers invariably look at the mark of origin when they buy matches. This was the experience of a tobacconist in Kingsway, who also stated that Empire tobaccos were attracting very much more attention.

A ladies' handbag shop in the Strand said that women were asking for British bags, but added that “younger girls still take foreign.” The manager of a big store in Oxford Street said that 90 per cent. of the women wanted bags of British origin.

In the provision and fruit trades there is a large increase in the demand for Empire goods. One of the biggest fruiterers in Covent Garden said that he was finding it almost impossible to dispose of his foreign stocks, and several foreign orders had been cancelled. He quoted the example of a big West End provision store whose buyer had always ordered foreign grape fruit. He has now switched over to Jamaica grape fruit and placed a weekly order for 75 cases.

A buyer for one of the biggest grocery wholesalers reported that his travellers were being so bombarded with requests for supplies of Empire goods that he had run out of some lines.

“It is not a question of selling Empire bacon, but of obtaining sufficient supplies,” the director of a firm of importers said.

An enormously increased demand for British goods is reported in the provinces, North and the Midlands. In Birmingham over 100 branches of co-operative societies are showing only Empire goods. Foreign potatoes have been returned as unsaleable in Liverpool.

In Wolverhampton, the principal firm of grocers reported a 60 per cent. increase in the demand for Empire goods in the country, and a 50 per cent. increase in the residential area. Empire wines have a record sale in Bristol.

“We heard the freight trains groaning, slipping, grinding, on the rail.”—R. F. C. Stead (Rly. Publicity Photos.) A goods train between Taihape and Mangaweka, on the North Island Main Trunk Line, New Zealand.

“We heard the freight trains groaning, slipping, grinding, on the rail.”—R. F. C. Stead
(Rly. Publicity Photos.)
A goods train between Taihape and Mangaweka, on the North Island Main Trunk Line, New Zealand.