RETAIL TRADE: Price Packers' Retreat

The Federal Trade Commission last week issued a progress report on its all-out attack on phony price cutting. In the three months since FTC started the campaign with a warning to merchants to stop marking up goods in order to make fake price cuts seem to be bargains, 60 companies have learned their lesson the hard way. Box score: 33 complaints, 21 orders to cease and desist, and six consent agreements. Most of the actions (32) were against furriers, long among the most obvious of the price packers, but the campaign also extended to sellers of sewing machines, perfumes, women's hosiery, cutlery, paints, bedspreads, even dolls.

More impressive still, says FTC, is the way businessmen themselves have stepped in to police retailers. Better Business Bureaus, ad agencies and manufacturers, who know that nothing destroys consumer confidence faster than a fake bargain, have distributed 500,000 copies of FTC's pricing guide—and printed thousands more at their own expense—to retailers along with strong letters urging them to comply.