Word: retails
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...past month has witnessed a persistent spread of price increases from raw materials to semi-manufactured and then to finished goods. These in turn are more and more being passed on from wholesale to retail markets, and are affecting the living costs of the entire consuming population as well as the operating costs of the farmers...
Meanwhile housewives-especially farmers' wives-kept up a buying spree (see chart} that sent last month's retail sales to an all-time high...
Department-store-keepers have another edge over most businessmen: they need not fret about prices. As everyone knows-including Leon Henderson-it would be virtually impossible to enforce retail price ceilings in the stores without a Gestapo (or even with one). Consumers thus far have ignored all price increases. Storekeepers' only real worry is inventories. By next spring their shelves will probably be bare of certain types of durable goods, and there will be no way to replace them...
Chrysler dealers throughout the U.S. last week began setting their own retail prices, thus ditched price policies as old as the automobile industry itself. Heretofore the manufacturer has advertised "Delivered in Detroit" prices up & down the country. But now Chrysler ads will mention no prices. Distributors will buy their Chryslers, Dodges, De Sotos, Plymouths at fixed wholesale prices, sell them for whatever the traffic (and the competition) will bear...
...scheme is not new; Graham-Paige Motors tried it in 1940. Because of elastic used-car allowances, rebates, finance charges, etc., dealers have always helped set retail prices in fact. But now Chrysler dealers will get the whole job. Thus they will have a chance to recoup possible losses from having fewer cars to sell, and they will bear the onus of blame for higher prices...