Document jB49e4YKDa5RN784xx3pJd19k

<j d h a SOUTH BOA0 SHOPPING CENTER, LANSDAU, PA. 19446 PHONE 855-4810 * 5778 DISTRIBUTORS FOR -- PAINTS: o u t c h ten PWNASEN & HAlY COOK & mMM c al ibar PECOBA McClOSS? MOL ETA MERKlN August 22ndt 1970* Mr. E. J. Faber Paint Logic 161-19 Jamaica Avenue Jamaica, New York 11432 Dear Jack? VINYL WALL COVERINGS: I'm so upset and appalled that I'm coming to you SANITAS WPAABlRlTtQEUXE OlEHDUSA as a friend and as a leader in an industry that we've both worked so hard to further and improve. STTITCX The National Lead Co. has just advised us that they WALLPAPERS; IMPERIAL IIXGS are opening an additional Dutch Boy paint outlet here in the center of Lansdale. TWIA8AUT KATZEN8A A WAUH WAllCSEST As you know, Ida's first husband passed away around Christmas and we bought his paint and wallpaper business. It was a natural for us and especially Ida. She and Sam started United back in 1938, worked hard and the both of them built It up to a very nice volume. So, being familiar with the business, knowing all the customers (it's a small town) and me teLng in the paint business *-- what could be better. There was originally four bidders including Finnaren & Haley who made no secret of the fact they if they were the successful purchasers would eliminate all lines and make United a company store. Another already had two other stores in our county and also stocked the Dutch Boy line. This bidder ' naturally concerned us so that before putting our money out, Ida and I both went Into Phi11y to see George Hammond, who you and I know very well. We told him we were interested in buying but only If he assured us we could keep the Dutch Boy line since Ida and Sam had been selling it from the very beginning of United. He was so excited that we might buy It that he said he would do whatever he could to help us. Also he admitted that he was most concerned that if Finnaren & Haley bought the store National would lose a $26,,000 account. He then introduced us to their sales manager, Phil Lanza, and to their credit manager and all three were cooperative, discussed ideas, etc. etc. They positively assured us we could retain the exclusive franchise. When Ida asked for it in writing, George was hurt that we doubted National. Lead's integrity and explained'to us it was not their pol$ry to put it; in writing nor was It In Dutch Boys interest to saturate an area and gave us examples of what they had done in similar circum stances. We left the Dutch Boy offices believing and really xcited. For years I have been telling dealers how to "run N 27455 1 I I I f f li US IS <^ceudas, 'Pit. SOUTH BSOAB SHOPPING CENTO, LAKSOALE, PA. 19446 PKOKS 855-4510 - 5773 (2( E. J. Fabers DISTRIBUTORS FOR -- PAJN7S: DUTCH KW FINNAMN i HAlf? COOS 1 CAUSA their business." Now we finally had the chance to put our money nWhere my mouth was." St I can11 stress this too much, Jack; without Georp Hammonds assurance we would have never bought the store and MdCLOSXf &OLI7A MSSOfct we completely depended on his exp res si on of loyalty to us and which we fully expected to re ciprocate. After all, we were laying out $35,000 ism WAU COVERINGS: SANfM WMITIX FASSiQVS cash plus some notes and now Pm in shock that a company of the size and stature and reputation of National Lead would do anything like this*. The mQlSiXrOuMfA canter of town where the new dealer is going to open is only 5/10 of a mile from our store. WALLPAPERS: mmui ilt&g TWJASAUT KATZSHMQi & WAUOU37 We took over on April 1st of this year and spent quite a lot of money. The store has been completely renovated and is the talk of the town, Vfe built a beautiful color bar for custom coloring t&at adjoins one of our picture windows passerbys watch us custom mix and it's not unusual to, see them standing with their noses literally against the window. We bought a new trucks the roof has a five gallon can mounted, we had an expenshre mould made so that it appears that paint is spilling out war the roof and barely touches the windshield. The effect as it drives around is most effective. Then we went to the expose of trimming the lines down to 'Just two and this too was an expensive "bath" but which obviously in the long min should mean more business for the t remaining lines. The store had a full line of Finnaren & Kaley (last years purchases almost $18,000,) a full line'of Cook & Dunn (last years purchases $8500) and some Moleta, Merkin, McCloskey, Caliber. At some expense we have now trimmed it down to just Dutch Boy and Elliott. It is obvious that temporarily both Elliott and Dutch Boy would .have to suffer a little until the others were eliminated. But we dropped nothing in the Dutch Boy line (and this I want to emphasize.) It's true we added nothing that the store did not carry but that was only because our opening expensive and rebuilding costs were enormous and we needed breathing room. We do discount all our bills and do have to meet note payments monthly. Because 1 am In the paint industry, Ida and I bent over backwards so that Hammond shouldn*t feel there was any discrimination. We left their line on the wall and areas where it had been placed, for the past 32 years. On the color bar (you can gat some idea of what it is like in one of our enclosed ads) the Dutch Boy and not the Elliott color chips face the windows* Our radio oommercials were alternated, half and half and our newspaper ads were divided between the two lines. fiiclosed is three of some of our ads. Note the ad with the two photos (one of such a series.) The SERVING THE GREATER NORTH PENN AREA SINCE 1933 ML 000041825 jiTEB Pflirn & v j s l l pap ^ tdatudaie. "P<s~ SOUTH BSQAD SHOPPING CEMTE3, LANSCALE, PA. 19446 M0N2 855-4810-5773 (3) E. J. Faber DISTRIBUTORS FOR - MOTS: mrrci es t picture of our manager is to subtly let the public know that Harry is still with us. Hes been here 27 HAISV cooz 4 m&m anw years and is very well known and liked. Ida of course is a cracker-jack interior decorator and before buying ptcosA Mcacscf MOUTTA back her own store held this position with the John Wannamaker department store in downtown. Philadelphia. Ml&iN The Dutch Boy and Elliott ads are alternated. In our VINYL WAUL COVERINGS: orange paint sale ad we have again devoted equal space SANfTAS WFAA5USTIGSUXS to the two lines and introduced the idea of pricing in color -- most effective and really talked about. In the Gi?45J&& imra carload paint sale once again equal space was given the two companies (and in every ad to date.) This ad was WALLPAPERS: uimui &SE THlASAUT placed during the Chicago truck strike and I had been without an Elliott shipment for seven weeks. They finally managed to get a trainload in to us and naturally $ATZ2NlAGf A WAtW WAll we took advantage of the situation by hiring a photographer. Even here if you note the placement of the photo many customers believed it was all Dutch Boy especially since we were careful about exposing the Elliott brand on the cartons. There were other ads but this will give you an idji of what and how we were doing It. Our volume was up over our predecessors, the advertising was drawing better than we had hoped (the holiday special drew on a Saturday alone $1000 worth of cash retail business. We were happy, excited and told Hammond as much And then, surprise! Two months ago Georg called His sudden complaints was so unexpected, so uncalled for, so persistent that although we attempted to rebut he didn't seem to assimilate anything we slid to the point we had the feeling he didn't want to. He started out by complaining bitterlyr&ere not selling enough spray cans, thatgwere sealing much more of Elliott's sprays. I don't know how anyone could possibly know how much of any Elliott was being sold (I explained later to John Ringhoffer, our Dutch Boy salesman, that we were not reordering spray cans in either line until we had unloaded the five other spray lines we had inherited. John expressed his apology to me that he had misunder stood and thought we would never reorder spray cans.) Such a fuss over spray cans! The conversation then shifted to our newspaper advertising in which he bitterly complained that we had advertised Dutch Boy in conjunction with a competitor ana that he couldn't allow it. He had never mentioned this in his office when v/e had gone over our plans. He didn't accept our explanation that v/e didn't know this was their policy, and told Ida he would not pay for the ads. She told him that we would take care of it ourselves and for some reason this seemed to make him very angry. George then told us we had a `hell of a nerxre1 advertising car load sal because in the photo you can see the wri "island" 'which any',fool knows is part of Bock Island." I asked Mm how any layman could SERVING T.H E GREATER NORTH PENN AREA SINCE 1938 Ml 000041826 TOED PAINT I rJALLFftPER CO. 1P<u SOUTH BROAD SHOPPING CENTER, LANSDALE, PA. 19446 PHONE 855-4810 - 5778 (4) E. J. Faber DISTRIBUTORS FOR -- PAINTS: SUTCH or PIKNAfiSM A KAitf coos s wm CAUSAL nco&A Mccioscr MOICTA MESKIH VINYL WALL COVERINGS: SANITAS WAUTEX FAUICHJ8 GIEKOUKA s t t it c x WALLPAPERS; possibly figure out this had nothing to do with Dueth Boy. He therefore shifted the conversation to an Elliott 400 product in the ad,a low priced howse paint we were experimenting with. He wanted to know why we didn't do this with their new Aclaim. The simple explanation is that United in 32 years had never discounted or sold a 'low priced line and we were afraid to invest money after only 2 months of ownership. It was our feeling that Aclaim was more a painters line than a retail line just as it was our feeling that the 400 was a painters line rather than a consumer line. When We gave this explanation to Elliott, they "loaned" us 24 gallons to play around with but after 3 weeks of selling only 8 gallons our belief was ^firmed and Elliott accepted a return of the t h iami/i #400. Not knowing Dutch Boy's feelings on this type of iurasNJtACH4wAwsm experimenting we didn't ask thaam to do this as we did w auc sbt not want to put George on a spot. This didn't satisfy George and he insisted that we buy Aclaim at once and every item on their price list otherwise he would have to Consider seriously" an offer to put the line in with another dealer in Lsnsdale. At first we were flabbergasted, then minimized the threat as "haxld selling." Inretrospect, it wasn't. I pointed out that to the best of my knowledge such a threat had not been made to any other Dutch Boy account in our general area (and so far as I know, it still hasn't) that we had not dropped any item or intended to do so, that other Dutch boy dealers did not stock Aclaim and why discriminate against us. And how is it that this too had never been told to us when we were in his office. At this point he suddenly terminated the conversation. The following day we received a letter from Hammond telling'us that an analysis of Urited purchases for the first five months of the year showed a decrease of 4% and that he felt this was a trend, (Apparently he didn't care or realize that in pushing out Cook & Dunn and Finnaren & Haley he was lucky the drop was only 4#.) He recommended that we establish a meeting to otTtline a clear policy and reminded us that it was necessary for a Dutch n0y dealer to stock a complete line obviously an allusion to Aclaim. I called but George was out so left a message a meeting was agreeable. We both felt such a meeting would help eliminate all possible misunderstandings, especially about stocking 100k of the price list of a line. Wa already stock about 95k of Dutcn Boy and you and I have seen in our travels many a dealer including Dutch, boy accounts that do not carry 100% of any price list. Certainly I Son' t have it with any of my Elliott accounts. Of the first five months 1970 figures we reminded them than the first three months included purchases made by United when we did not oMn it and it was being operated by an estate, Hammond advised he had to go South and would contact us on his return. SERVING*! HE GREATER NORTH PENN AREA SINCE 1 V 3 8 NL 000041827 u n it ed mm a w al l paper c o . #amdae, Pa- SOUTH BROAD SHOPPING CENTER, LANSDALI, PA. 19446 PHONE 855-4810 - 5778 (5) E. J. Faber. DISTRIBUTORS FOR -- . PAINTS: OUTCH BOY FINNAftEN & HALEY COOK & SUNN CAllftAft PECORA McClOSKY MOLETA MERK1H VINYL WALL COVERINGS: SAN ITAS WAUTEX FA&AiQUE CIENDUXA STYLTEX ` WALLPAPERS: IMPERIAL BI&OE 7H1ASAVT XA72ENSACH & WASSEN WAUCREST A month went by without-"'hearing from Hammond, and we left on a one week vacation. While away George called and upon learning v/e were away immediately wrote a letter to us telling us how disappointed he was that v/e would be unable to meet since he would be out of the town the week v/e returned and he would therefore have to postpone any meeting until.he, his salesmanager and our Dutch Boy salesman all returned from their vacations. I do not fceally know why in all this time (2 months) we had to wait for so many people if the situation was as serious as he felt it was. After all, we v/ere available from the time we bought the store until today with the exception of just one vacation week. He felt in his letter that "with the rapidly expand!ng economy and population growth in our area" the situation was "grave"and one that must be resolved immediately.- The underlining is mine. He would call us when he was ready to set up a meeting date. Jack, how naive must one be? I discussed these series of events with four other Dutch Boy dealers and with my accountant and all said separately and is as many words: prepare yourself you're being set up for another Lansdule Dutch Boy dealer. Of course we didn't at first want to believe it, but when v/e reviewed our conversations and letters from Hammond, the apparent badgering from him, the inability to arrange at any time a face to face meeting with him, there seemed no question but that this was what was coming* If it was so all-fired important to outline a clear- cut policy what was the v/alting all about? Gtorge Hammond is Dutch Boy in the South Atlantic Sales District and he could have resolved all this in less than a days visit with us. The National r Lead office is not even 20 driving miles from Lansdale an.: George lives only about a 20 minute; drive from us. V/e own this store four month and for two of them we have had this hanging over us with no apparent real effort being made to clear anything up. Just 2 phone calls, ` hey knew we were planning to buy Ac .lain after Labor Day and that we planned to introduce it at a painters meeting. j When I brought this subject up as lunch with Hinghoffer his reaction was who were v/e going to sell it to, we did so little painter business. My explanation was,just as everything else we aid, we would try. Wouldn't you, too, come to the conclusion that Hammond's decision has been made some time ago? Frankly, as this ooint we stopped bending over bade ward. We sold Aitch Boy, we didn't push it. We have the most beautiful and one of the largest (25 x 100')* paint j stores not only in Lansdale but in our general area. Tnis doesn't ; seem to be enough for them. How can George be so hungry, so short- sighted that his word of honor to us can be so easily discarded* { i Another month went by and our suspicions were confirmed. This j SERVING THE GREATER NORTH PENN AREA SINCE l 9 3 S ML 000041828 f UNITED PAINT & WALLPAPER CO. ^anidedc. Pa* SOUTH 880AD SHOPPING CENTER, LANSOALE, PA. 19446 PHONE 855-4810-5778 (6) E.J. Faber DISTRIBUTORS FOR -- PAINTS: DUTCH SOT PINNAREN 1 HALEY COO* & DUNN CAUBAt PEC02A McClOSKY MOIETA MERXIN VINYL WALL COVERINGS: past Thursday George Hammond phoned to tell us our figures were down and that he had sold the line to a new dealer opening very soon in the heart of Lonsdale. Furthermore, their opening order was larger than United's ' entire 1969 purchases ($26,000)1 Until this phone call he had led us to believe that all we had to do was ante up at once, buy Aclaim, and everything would be 0.K. SANITAS WALITEX PABRJOUS OIRNDUKA STYLTEX WALLPAPERS: IMPERIAL B1RG2 THIA&AU? KATZENBACH & WARREN WAucmr We find it hard to believe that anyone in their position could not or would not understand the expense of talcing over a business, the loss any dealer must take in unloading two full lines and parts of three others and the time in which we did it We broke our backs not just renovating but vitalizing this business and we practically bought it on George Hammond's say so. To the very end of his phone conversation, Thursday, he complained about our spray business and of course threw up our loss of volume. Our Elliatt volume is below tiiat which was Finnaren u Haley alone but they told, us not to worry. At any rate the gist of George's conversation was that he called to tell us they had sold another dealer and that he didn t want us to hear it from anyone else. He told her Lanza was away anu .in the near future he would come out and discuss his decision with -*s. Ida asked'if the decision was already made what was the- point in corah g out to discuss it -With us, aid why could::* t ho come out alone. He said he wouldn't and that terminated the conversation. So now, Jack, what is there to do? We have so much money and hard work invested on t n e.i r y sc . If you have any ideas, please don't hesitate tc call me. dur United phone nutter is listed above. My home numbers is still 855-4816 ana 855-231*+. regards and all our best to you end Sdma, P.S.% Jack, if George Hammond wasn't rude in not coming out to tell us, then he just didn* t waatc to face us from the i very first phone call 2 months ago. We spent over a $1000 remodeling and he still'hasn't seen it completed, despite our invitations. IML 00004182S 1 SERVING r-H GREATER NORTH PENN AREA SINCE 1938