THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
1. Just about two weeks before the time of greatest 
demand. 
2. When our stocks are largest and as complete as possible. 
3. When we can profitably spend the most money for 
publicity and newspaper advertising. 
The aim is to make a record, a new high-water mark. 
There are several good merchandising reasons for including 
this as a specific date in the selling calendar. 
Why should the mass selling precede the time of greatest 
demand by about two weeks? For one thing, we can handle 
the business better at this time. Just before we naturally 
have our largest demand, our salespeople are not so busy. 
Moreover, our best publicity for the time of greatest demand 
to follow, which ought to be the time of the greatest profit, 
is to have as many satisfied customers as possible wearing 
or using our goods. 
At the beginning of the period of mass selling, our basic 
stock should be larger than at the opening and larger indeed 
than at any other time. It is hardly necessary to discuss 
the well-known, almost obvious principle that stocks of 
wanted merchandise should be large when entering a busy 
season. It is not so apparent, however, why the total stock 
may be smaller at the very height of the period of mass 
selling than at the beginning. 
The period of mass selling is the logical time to feature the 
best-selling full line, because this is the period when sales 
resistance is least. So the beginning of this period should 
be the time for which we have made the most liberal appro- 
priations for publicity. Fundamentally, the ideal condition 
is to keep the store running at full capacity every week of 
the year rather than to put an extraordinary strain on it one 
week and employ only so per cent of its capacity another 
week. The greatest publicity should come at the beginning 
of the period of mass selling, therefore, when the natural 
demand is not yet at its peak, but can be stimulated, and 
the danger of straining and overloading our organization is 
small. It is possible in this way to induce a customer to 
buy 10 days earlier than ordinarily and to bring into our 
“ry