Under the two pyramid system in effect since the stores reached the department, stage in the info 1800's the buyer is completely separate from any selling responsibilities. All sales and store operations are handled by the management division. But under the increasingly popular department manager system, the buyer takes on all the duties of a small store owner.

Increased Sales

Department stores have found that giving a buyer the additional supervision over selling and facilitating functions, as well as over buying, sales events, and profit accounting, has tended to increase sales. With minute records of day-to-day sales acting as chock-ups, the buyer can no longer shift blame onto the management department for poor sales of his specialty.

Most men, however, spurred on by early assistant buyer openings, enter departmental store buying, then branch out after gaining experience. The department stores concentrate on instilling a comprehensive knowledge of merchandising in its junior executives, making a rapid rise in any branch of the field.

But not all men leave well-playing positions for better paying jobs elsewhere. The physical demands upon the department manager or buyer together with constant mental strain are enough to soon force the unqualified out of retailing. It is no life for a person looking for the stability of routine work.

The field is dynamic. It is a young man's field, and exacts the work that only a young man can give. The hours are long. planning must be done off the job, and effective planning is essential for rapid advancement.

Yet even for the experienced buyer the field offers a minimum of security. Retailing is a fashion business. If a buyer does not have what the people want, he goes. few stores will risk hiring a buyer or merchandise manage for more than one year at a time. A buyer may even be extremely successful for several years, then he dumped for not surpassing his previous record. Often the buyer goes for reasons over which he has no control.

All is not buying however.

Establishments have lately tended to increase personnel in their other departments much more rapidly than in the merchandising divisions. More jobs and faster promotions will probably always be found in the merchandising end, but top fight executives today no longer regard buying and selling as the sole guts of the trade.

Other industries have proved the advantages of personnel departments, modern advertising, and detailed record keeping; retail trade is now trying t catch up. Executives expect the next large improvement to come in the application of electronics to the industry. Rapid expansion to the country and suburban areas is proving all the while the necessity for having top men in store management and control, as well as in buying and selling. Expansion, of course, means more demand for college graduates to fill additional posts.

Lack of Manpower

But employment offices of the big retail outfits report they do not have enough men to fill their training program courses, and are having to go outside their companies t find the needed men. The most recent move t increase the attractiveness of the business has been elimination of the six-day working week. Yet knowledge that the free day will probably not come on Saturday has served to decrease the effectiveness of this move.

Personnel departments place most of the blame on the draft for the recent slack in interested college graduates. Those not being drafted want to go on to graduate schools to avoid having to serve and to complete as much education as possible.

Major stumbling-blocks to men entering retailing are the tough training programs. College graduates recoil at the prospect of six to 18 more months of detailed training during which time they will perform no responsible function, but even business school graduates are required to submit to the technical merchandising instruction.

The periods vary in length and content with the size of the establishments.