The mail-order house goes even beyond the department store in an effort to bring producer and consumer closer together. Working from the production side, the typical mail-order house is a manufacturer as well as a large-scale buyer of goods directly from producers. It may own sawmills, lumber yards, furniture factories, shoe factories, stove factories, and various other mills and factories. Or, as is often the case, it may contract for the entire output of factories and mills owned and operated by other concerns. Whatever the method employed, its purpose in any case is to secure goods at the lowest possible price. Much more significant are the methods employed by mail-order houses to get their goods into the hands of consumers. Invariably, the medium of salesmanship is a printed catalog, characterized by its excellence of advertising copy and illustrations. Customers order direct from the catalog, each advertised article bearing a stock number and price.

No other business institution in the country is so universally disliked by retailers, who argue that a mail-order house, quality as well as price considered, does not give better values than local dealers. They also take the position that it is the duty of consumers to keep their money at home by patronizing them. The validity of the first argument rests on a question of facts; of the second, on economic principle. Whether or not a certain mail-order house offers better values than a certain group of retailers is a question that can only be answered, if at all, after an exhaustive examination by experts. The appeal to local pride has usually had little weight, since consumers are likely to feel justified in getting the best bargains possible. Retailers everywhere are beginning to see the futility of the "home-market" argument, with the result that more and more they are taking the initiative in persuading people to compare values, and in some cases the retailers are profiting by studying the advertising copy in the "big catalogs." Moreover, they are awakening to the possibilities which come from a more liberal policy of advertising in their local newspapers.