Consumer-Mindedness
Success in the post-war export trade will depend on knowledge of foreign markets and of the needs and tastes of foreign consumers. We can no longer depend, as so often in the past, on the excellence of our waxes and simply invite foreign buyers to take or leave what we offer them. The plan initiated by a group of industrialists to form on a co-operative basis a "British Export Trade Research Organisa- tion "*is a promising sign that British industry is becoming more consumer-minded. Large concerns no doubt will continue to have their agents abroad studying the markets and advising their prin- cipals, but they cannot always have them everywhere, and for smaller concerns the expense of full representation abroad may be prohibi- tive. The plan, initiated by a number of influential companies, is to bring together concerns interested in the export trades as founder or ordinary members ; their contributions would support an active central office, which would be in direct touch with agents working in all parts of the world. Help is promised by the Department of Overseas Trade. An organisation of this kind should provide an economical service for its members, enabling them to know what people in this or that country want, how much they can pay, and perhaps also by what means wares can be advantageously marketed. There will be a need for the right kind of publicity and information about the best procedure in advertising. In the period immediately following the war there will be a world shortage of most manufactured articles, and it will be easy to sell even the second-best. The ease with which goods could be sold during that period would be mis- leading unless it were accompanied by an active study of the real needs of markets, on which a long-term exporting policy should be based. That study, it appears, is now to be undertaken.
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