ABSTRACT
We have already introduced the term ‘services parameter’—without apology, although ‘services’ is something of a dirty word in discussions of the economics of the distributive trades. Services are thought of as the collection of activities which shopkeepers undertake with intent to establish monopolies or when they are too effete to compete on price. Services are thought to be wasteful of the resources of the national economy, and the tendency is to equate virtue with making the customer serve herself.
