Success Quote by Marshall Field

In an era when American retail was learning to industrialize charm, Marshall Field frames “good will” as the last uncopyable advantage. Prices can be cut, locations can be matched, inventory can be duplicated. But the feeling a customer carries away - the sense that a store will treat you fairly, fix a mistake, remember your preferences, absorb the hassle - resists the brute mechanics of competition. Field isn’t being sentimental; he’s being ruthlessly practical. He’s naming an asset that lives in people’s memories and habits, not on a balance sheet, yet it can decide whether a shopper returns when the novelty fades and the discounts end.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke to the price-war mindset that defined late-19th-century capitalism. “Undersell” evokes the ruthless race to the bottom; “destroy” raises the stakes from mere rivalry to reputational annihilation. Field argues that goodwill is insulated from that violence precisely because it’s relational. You can’t undercut someone else’s trust with a coupon. You can only earn your own - slowly - through consistent behavior.

Context matters: Field built a department-store empire on fixed pricing, customer service, and a curated, modern shopping experience. Goodwill, here, isn’t moral virtue; it’s brand equity before the term existed, a social contract that turns a one-time transaction into a durable relationship. In the long run, he implies, the cheapest store isn’t the most threatening competitor. The most threatening competitor is the one who makes people feel secure.