local supervision. Therefore, the theory was "no sales - no income". (2)
             Another factor was when the wagon merchants bought merchandise at wholesale prices direct from the manufacturer and resold everything at a higher price. Thus, failure to sell anything when visiting a particular town was financial disaster. Additionally, there was a big desire to sell everything that was in the wagon before returning for more new inventory. One has only to imagine the persuasive selling tactics employed by this group of roving salespeople. In fact, this resulted in many wagon merchants only hitting an area just once, because the personal guarantees they made about some of the questionable products they sold cultivated some very angry customers who couldn't wait to get their hands on that particular salesman. (66) Very often, they would never see that person again. The DSA Website says, "historical factors provide a brief glimpse into why salespeople today have the heritage of such a poor reputation. In fact, no oth
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