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In most discussions of this phenomenon, the figures are substantially inflated.

No suburban shopping-center branch -- not even Hudson's vast Northland outside Detroit -- does anything like the unit volume of business or carries anything like the variety of merchandise to be found in the home store.

Telephone orders distort the picture: the suburbanite naturally calls a local rather than a central-city number if both are listed in an advertisement, especially if the local call eliminates city sales tax.

The suburban branch is thereby credited with a sale which would have been made even if its glass doors had never opened.

Accounting procedures which continue to charge a disproportionate overhead and warehouse expense to the main store make the branches seem more profitable than they are.

In many cases that statement -- `` We break even on our downtown operation and make money on our branches '' -- would be turned around if the cost analysis were recalculated on terms less prejudicial to the old store.

Fear of the competition -- always a great motivating force in the American economy -- makes retailers who do not have suburban operations exaggerate both the volume and the profitability of their rival's shiny new branches.

The fact seems to be that very many large branch stores are uneconomical, that the choice of location in the suburbs is as important as it was downtown, and that even highly suburbanized cities will support only so many big branches.

Moreover, the cost of operations is always high in any new store, as the conservative bankers who act as controllers for retail giants are beginning to discover.