THE LARKIN SOAP COMPANY

John Durant Larkin (1848-1926) built an empire that rivaled Sears Roebuck based on a bar of soap and The Larkin Plan.

Initially he toiled in grueling fourteen-hour days producing the soap product that he then went out to sell door-to-door from morning to night. Thus began the “factory to family” theme that would be the mainstay of the Larkin Company throughout its history

All that changed during a discussion with his brother-in-law, the maketing wizard/genuis Elbert Hubbard (Fra Elbertus to some of us)

The growth of the company's mail-order business was spurred by Hubbard's suggestion that the Larkin Company replace the bulky standard twelve-cake package of soap with a lighter three cake box of soap for ten cents. Later, Larkin added small premiums to soap boxes as an inducement for customers to buy more soap. These modest premiums included handkerchiefs with toilet soap, towels with soap powder, or one-cent coins. Eventually, Larkin inserted certificates into the packaged products which could be redeemed by mail at the Buffalo office.

In 1886, Elbert Hubbard created the "Combination Box," a six dollar assortment of toilet soaps shipped for thirty days' approval. This package was altered, in 1891, to the ten-dollar Combination Box. It contained one hundred bars of Sweet Home Soap, nine small boxes of fine toilet soaps and creams, and a premium valued at ten dollars. Both packages contained enough soap to last the average family a year at a price that was roughly one week's pay. The purchase of these boxes entitled customers to certificates that could then be exchanged for selected items of their choice from the company's catalog which published Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter editions. The Larkin catalog offered hundreds of products and premiums. By selling directly to the consumer expenses were eliminated and the savings passed on through "free" premiums that were equal in value to the product's price.

Sales boomed from $220,000 in 1892 to $15 million by 1906. Larkin products and premiums made it possible for customers to furnish their homes, stock their pantries, and clothe their children. The "Larkin Club" was established enabling the customer to purchase items on the installment plan. It became the heart of the mail order business and a key to the company's success.The company referred to the clubs as the highest and most popular development of the Larkin Idea.

The growth of department stores, the popularity of the automobile and the volatility of the marketplace, especially during the Great Depression, damaged the Larkin Company's mail order business. Larkin's diversification into its own chains of retail food markets, gasoline stations, home craft stores, and a department store did not revive the company. The loss of key executives due to retirement or death and internal struggles among the next generation of Larkin executives, hurried the demise of the company. Sales fell from $28.6 million in 1920 to $2 million by 1939 and the Company ceased operations in the 1940's.

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Fra Elbertus created his own Goodie Box that he sold out of Roycrofters in East Aurora, NY.