Peddling has spread so much that the country is teeming with these make -do salesmen

Pedling as a form of unfair competition between the world wars

Abstract

Besides trade, which was relatively well developed in the period between the two world wars, fairs and peddling still played an important role. The latter was based on Austrian craft legislation; however, the most significant provision was that only persons with permission were allowed to sell products from door to door. In certain municipalities, the local authorities had the discretionary power to (temporarily) ban this type of sales. The conflict between salesmen who provided services in permanent locations in accordance with the legislation and the peddlers who sold the goods from door to door, was an old one; however, peddling as form of occasional, “mobile sales” survived until the modern period. In the 1930s in particular, at the time of a big economic crisis, domestic peddlers and traveling salesmen from abroad were the only real competition for the domestic salesmen.