It has been Good Housekeeping's privilege to build up, as a source for reader service, many departments that are unique and noteworthy in the extent to which they have gone in measuring consumer needs and consumer viewpoint.
In the following pages are presented some observations made by one of these departments as the result of years of research and investigation in the field of household appliances.
Generally speaking, most man-made devices are man-used. Here is an industry whose products are man-made, but woman-used. It is this fundamental condition that has placed the merchandising and selling problems of the industry absolutely in a class by themselves and has made them of peculiar importance and significance.
It is hoped that the material given herein may be of real service to those whose interest lies in knowing more about one of our most rapidly growing and least understood industries and also to those who would better understand the basic element in all manufacturing and selling.
C. Henry Hathaway
The manufacture of home devices to be used by women in household work is of comparatively recent development, the growth of the industry has been so rapid that many manufacturers are still groping to establish standards that will meet the new and uncertain conditions under which their product must be used.
Dealers in household equipment as well as manufacturers are still uncertain as to what constitutes the selling value of an article, because it has been impossible to predicate the conditions, the care and skill with which each device would be used after it was marketed. It is comparatively easy for designer and factory manager to guard against known conditions of use. The dishwashing machine for a hotel or restaurant service can be built to perform with satisfactory efficiency. Its operating purposes and costs are known, the skill of its operators is more or less established, and the materials can be so selected to result in a satisfactory life of the machine.
It is a different story when the manufacturer's product is to be used in the typical American home. Household equipment of every type must be made so that it will prove adaptable to different service conditions, with regard to both homes and actual users. An even more important consideration is intermittent use that must be met successfully by all home devices. It is the unusual home in which washing is done more than once or twice a week. The balance of the time the machine must stand idle. And this is true of practically every other type of labor saving device. It represents the most difficult of conditions a factory product has to face.
In dealing