Retreat for Survival

The old-fashioned general store may have its renascence this year. That was the talk last week in the retail grocery trade. Since the expected 40 to 50% slump in food sales volume this year may liquidate at least one out of every six of the 580,000 U.S. food dealers, grocers figure their best hope of staying in business is to stock their bare shelves with other types of merchandise.

Alert to the urgency of beating a strategic retreat back to the merchandising methods of a century ago, 17-year-old Independent Grocers Alliance has ready for its 5,000 independent grocers a 70-item drug and cosmetic line. To catch the wartime gardener, I.G.A. stores will soon sell fertilizers, seeds, garden tools and clothes, insecticides. They also plan to stock dry goods, notions, baby supplies, glassware, hardware. Other grocer associations, big chains and supermarkets are sending bewildered buyers to explore new wholesale markets for fast-selling staples.

To other merchants lying awake nights wondering how they too can stay in business as their stocks dwindle, the grocers' variety-store plans have an ominous ring. If food stores convert to the traditional general-store type of merchandise, consumers may concentrate their buying where they must go for their essential foods anyway. This may mean fewer shopping trips to druggists, dry goods and hardware stores.

First to squawk at the invasion of their field was the National Association of Retail Druggists, who last week asked drug manufacturers to supply drugstores first. The trade war was on.

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