(x6 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
Industrial Revolution, where the great prizes are going to 
those who apply the principles of mass production and mass 
distribution. 
I firmly believe that a scientific examination of the facts 
would show that if the Model Stock Plan had become the 
established usage of the department stores ro years ago, 
their growth would have been much more rapid and the 
growth of chain stores much smaller than it has been. For 
the Model Stock Plan greatly concentrates buying and, there- 
fore, gives bulk buying to the department stores using it; 
this has its greatest advantage as applied to the higher- 
priced goods, where the greatest wastes in production exist 
today and where the possibilities for enormous savings 
exist. In addition to this, the scientific handling of style 
goods by the Model Stock Plan is also a big advantage. 
Moreover, department stores have other obvious advantages 
that the chain stores have not and will never have unless the 
various chains “tie” themselves together and, in addition 
to their neighborhood stores, occupy department store 
buildings. 
Independent stores and department stores will be greatly 
helped in meeting chain-store competition by using the 
Model Stock Plan. It fits perfectly into the new, more 
profitable method of mass merchandising. As long as there 
was no mass production in the world, applying the Model 
Stock Plan was less easy and perhaps less important. Now 
that mass production and mass distribution—as typified 
by Chevrolet and Ford and the chain stores—are clearly 
showing that they are the source of the greatest total profits, 
our Model Stock Plan is proving itself peculiarly fitted to 
get the greatest results from this new industrial machinery. 
Its use is bound to earn even greater total profits than in the 
past. 
Distribution as practiced today is so wasteful that in a 
very few years we shall have trouble understanding how we 
ever tolerated its wastes for so long a time. Within a very 
few years, better, more scientific methods of distribution will 
be in general use.