26 
THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
1. Far better assortments, because we have fewer different 
prices to spread our stock over. 
2. Far better values, for, by simplification of prices, we 
are applying the same principles that give Woolworth’s such 
extraordinary values. 
3. Far greater sales, coming from our better assortments 
and better values—and, from these, still greater sales because 
of resultant mass buying and mass selling. 
In using the Model Stock Plan, then, we concentrate 
complete assortments effectively at the three price levels at 
which the greatest number of people buy. 
The three price levels are actually the three mass-selling 
prices at which the greatest number of people buy, at which 
stocks move most quickly, and at which the most merchan- 
dise can be sold. There is nothing arbitrary about these 
three full-line prices. They are specifically determined by 
that section of the community’s pocketbook upon which a 
store depends for the bulk of its customers. They are 
compulsory, necessary, and scientific. 
There is great strength in the argument for having goods 
above the highest-priced full line even if they cannot be 
obtained at prices to be sold profitably as highest-priced 
full-line goods. There is a definite publicity value in hav- 
ing—preferably in a de luxe department—as high-priced 
goods as any store keeps in specialties, style goods, and the 
like. The same reasoning applies to goods below the cheapest 
full line, preferably handled in a basement store. 
Putting aside for the moment, then, consideration of goods 
above and below the three full-price lines, we may classify 
merchandise in any given line in our store as: 
1. Highest-priced full line, 
2. Best-selling full line. 
3. Cheapest-priced full line. 
A natural inquiry is: “Why may we not have four full-line 
prices rather than three; would not the fourth line increase 
our sales materially ?”’ 
t See Chaps. V and VI.