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MODERN PACKAGING

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Let's capitalize on recovery

W e'll leave to economists the job of explaining what's happening to business. More important is what's obviou-�the slow slide seems to be gradually turning into a reassuring recovery that is significant to every businessman who packages a product. In scattered indexes there are enough evident signs to document our recent predictions that business this year would be anything but slack, particularly in packaging.

In this field, over-all strength has been drawn from the stability of the biggest packager-�food, drugs and tobacco, for instance in which many companies have surprised their stockholders with sales records that failed to reflect the softness of business generally.

So a major share of advances in the months ahead will be measured not only in recovery but in new gains too gains that will come from new business spread among important package users. What are the prospects that support this view?

In an optimistic report on consumer pricing, The New York Times foresees a year-long price stabilization except in food. And there the outlook for a reduction is based on "magnificent crop-� and a long-term glut in meat. Perhaps more important is the fact that huge new plants and modern equipment will be ready for use in the period ahead, stepping up productivity at lower labor costs per unit of output. Inevitably, retail sales competition will become more intense.

This puts it up to package users to survey their markets and to recognize the legitimate demands of their customer-�the supermarket executive and the housewife, for example. Will packagers now listen to the big retailers who don't like new package sizes that simply hog more shelf space without delivering more product and profit? Or to the housewife who wants more practical package-�packages that open easily without destroying vital directions; that she can use without contortion and that she can reclose quickly, neatly and completely? Or to the retailer who meets her demands and his own sales quotas by consistently stocking only the most popular brands in the most convenient packages at the most appealing prices?

Simple? It sounds too simple. Yet such questions can be put to packagers in every product line. And the packager who doesn't grasp this obvious challenge will miss his main chance to capitalize now on a recession that is about to become a recovery.

Contents copyrighted 1958 by Modern Packaging Corp. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portion thereof in any form. The name Modern Packaging is registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Printed in U.S.A. by Hildreth Press, Inc., Bristol, Conn. Member, Audit Bureau of Circulations. Member, Associated Business Publications. Modern Packaging is regularly indexed in the Industrial Arts Index.