A rack jobber (also known as a rack merchandiser) is a company or trader that has an agreement with a

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

to display and sell products in a store. The outlets for the products would be ones that traditionally do not stock such products such as gas stations,

grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

s, and others not traditionally associated with the products sold. Often the products are of a budget variety.

Etymology of the phrase

The term "jobber" can be synonymous with wholesaler or intermediary in merchandising. The term dates to the mid-19th century and earlier. The rack jobber retains ownership of the products, reducing the potential loss incurred by the retailer from lack of product sales. The proceeds of the sale from the product are then divided/shared by the rack jobber and retailer. Rack jobbers have played a role in the music industry: in the 1930s the Music Dealers Service was a rack jobber that operated music sheet racks.

LP records The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; and ...

have been supplied to stores in this fashion. Other items rack jobbers have supplied include beauty aids, greeting cards, hardware, paperback books and toys. The display, maintenance and stock rotation of the merchandise are the responsibility of the rack jobber who must periodically come into the store.

LP Records

The first LP rack jobber in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

was Elliott Wexler (1913–1966) who started Music Merchants in Philadelphia in 1952. One record label whose catalogue was sold via rack jobbers was

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Stu-Sz#Su, location * S ...

, founded by Bob Blythe, the former president of

Tops Records Tops Records was a Los Angeles-based record label owned by Tops Music Enterprises, both founded in 1947 by Carl L. Doshay and Sam Dickerman. After a prolific and profitable run, Tops merged with PRI Records in 1958, which in turn, sold to a group ...

. The label launched in 1963 with 225 records in its catalog, which was sourced from labels that included Music Craft, Omega and Tiara. Another record label that found its way into the racks was

Crown Records Crown Records was a budget albums record label founded as a subsidiary of Modern Records in 1957. It has been the name of several different record labels, listed below. Discography Mono Stereo Other Crown Records * United Kingdom ** Crown Reco ...

, a budget label owned by the

Bihari brothers The Bihari brothers, Lester, Jules, Saul and Joe, were American businessmen of Hungarian Jewish origins. They were the founders of Modern Records in Los Angeles and its subsidiaries, such as Meteor Records, based in Memphis. The Bihari brothers wer ...

. In the 1960s, one third of record sales were from records sold via rack jobbers. Eventually the rack jobbers moved into more traditional department stores by making arrangements with the retailer in various ways. One of them was asking the retailer to allow a certain amount of sell-space and the rack jobber deciding what goes in the space. Also there could be a verbal guarantee that all of the products would be sold and if not, the next time around, the rack jobber would bring back merchandise that would.

References

{{Reflist, 30em, refs=
Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
'' (Vol. 1), "Rack Jobber", by

Dave Laing David William Laing (9 January 1947 – 7 January 2019) was an English writer, editor, and broadcaster, specialising in the history and development of pop and rock music. He was a research fellow at the universities of Westminster and Liverpool ...

(born 1947),

Continuum Continuum may refer to: * Continuum (measurement), theories or models that explain gradual transitions from one condition to another without abrupt changes Mathematics * Continuum (set theory), the real line or the corresponding cardinal number ...

(2003), pg. 562; {{oclc, 276305981 "Rack Jobber"
'' Cambridge Dictionaries Online'' "Rack Jobber"
''

TheFreeDictionary.com ''The Free Dictionary'' is an American online dictionary and encyclopedia that aggregates information from various sources. Content The site cross-references the contents of ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', the ...

''
Distribution: Planning and Control
'' by David Frederick Ross (born 1948), Chapter 2: "The Distribution Management Environment: Defining the Logistics and Distribution Environment",

Kluwer Academic Publishers Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 in ...

(2003), pg. 46; {{oclc, 851248881 "Bob Blythe Starts New Name Talent Low-Budget LP Line"
''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'', March 2, 1963, pg. 6 "Yorke Completing Staff Before Moving"
''

'', November 28, 1964, pg. 3 "Budget Record Makers Bullish, Expanding Market"
by Bob Rolontz ''(né'' Robert Rolontz; 1920–2000), ''

'', August 24, 1963, pp. 16 & 18
Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry
' (4th printing), by R. Serge Denisoff ''(né'' Ronald Serge Denisoff; 1939–1994), "The Cop Out" (chapter),

Transaction Publishers Transaction Publishers was a New Jersey-based publishing house that specialized in social science books and journals. It was located on the Livingston Campus of Rutgers University. Transaction was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016 and merged with ...

(1995), pg. 191; {{oclc, 917115787 "The Role of the Rack Jobber"
by James J. Sheeran, '' Journal of Marketing'' Vol. 25, No. 5, July 1961, pp. 15–21; {{issn, 0022-2429, {{oclc, 5791363994 "Jobber Tells All: How To Rack Up Super Disk Sales,"
by Ralph Freas, ''

'', April 28, 1958, pg. 16

External links

Shipping Revolution Homepage
Distribution (marketing) Occupations in music Sales occupations

Etymology of the phrase

LP Records

See also

References

External links