The Consumer Viewpoint

The Consumer Viewpoint, by
Mildred Maddocks

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Title: The Consumer Viewpoint
Author: Mildred Maddocks
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The Consumer Viewpoint
covering vital phases of manufacturing and selling household devices
by Mildred Maddocks, Director GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
INSTITUTE
Department of Household Engineering

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

FOREWORD
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 in the following pages with this most important subject it
must be understood that Good Housekeeping Institute is offering
valuable facts that have been established through fifteen years of
experience in testing household equipment, and is further utilizing the
viewpoint of thousands of consumers and dealers who have come for a
conference with us either in person or by letter.

POINTS OFTEN OVERLOOKED BY MANUFACTURERS.
It is not too much to say that in general the manufacturer wants to
produce the article that the woman wants to buy. In many cases the
reason he does not accomplish it is due to the fact that he