He joined his older brother, Noble, in the butcher's shop he ran but was unhappy with the lack of prospects for advancement. At 16, he decided to move to Boston, but his father loaned him $25 as an inducement to stay. Swift used $19 of it to buy a heifer from a local farmer, slaughtered it, and sold the beef door to door. He made a $10 profit and from then on went weekly to the local cattle market in the town of Brighton. Around 1859 he opened his own butcher shop in Eastham and hired another brother to run it while he set up a second shop in Barnstable. By this time Swift had wed Annie Higgins; they would have nine children.
Swift soon opened other shops in Clinton and Freetown, Massachusetts. He recognized certain principles of retail psychology that helped make his stores a success. His butcher shops were clean, and he tried to display his wares attractively on large white marble trays. He displayed the cuts he needed to sell first and offered smaller cuts, which seemed to induce shoppers to buy more.
Swift expanded his operations rapidly.
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