A bulletin entitled "Expenses and Profits of Variety Chains in 1931 Compared with 1929" has just been published by the Bureau of Business Research of the Harvard Business School.

The study, the 89th in the Bureau's series relating to the cost of doing business in various industries, was based on confidential figures from variety store chains, including 5 and 10 cent chains, and those selling goods at prices up to one dollar, which did well over 50 per cent of the total variety chain business in 1931.

"Unlike some other types of retail business, chain variety stores maintained their dollar sales volume remarkably well during the years 1930 and 1931," the bulletin states. "The 24 companies which reported to the Bureau for both 1929 and 1931 had almost the same aggregate dollar sales volume in the two years. Because of the decline in prices over this period it is a fair inference that the physical volume of merchandise handled must have been substantially greater in 1931.

"An important means by which many of these of these chains maintained dollar volume over this period was to open or acquire a substantial number of new stores. At the same time that the number of stores increased, the sales per store increased, the sales per store decreased sharply; and while store inventories were substantially reduced, the rate of gross margin declined only slightly. The effect of the decrease in sales per store, however, was to increase the total percentage cost of doing business."