CHOOSING PRICE LEVELS TO INCREASE SALES 33 
requires. In determining our prices we have the biggest 
lever in determining our profits. 
If the price is right, there comes direct saving in publicity 
and sales effort all along the line. For a rightly set price has 
innate virtues that do not have to be extravagantly “pushed” 
to be recognized. 
If the prices are set at wrong levels, not only may we be 
misled but also the whole Model Stock Plan may be prevented 
from functioning in the most profitable way. Aside from the 
effect on customers of offering less attractive values, since 
under the Model Stock Plan selling price determines what we 
shall or can buy, if we have a price that is 10 per cent too 
high, we lose the valuable stimulus of having to work hard 
to get into our three price levels goods that, as yet, are just 
beyond the reach of our fixed prices and so beyond the maxi- 
mum mass-purchasing price of very important numbers of 
possible customers. 
The prices of full lines need to be reviewed every season. 
Any one of several sets of conditions may alter them. No 
set of prices should be carried over to a new season unless we 
can prove that more merchandise is being sold, and should 
be sold, at those prices than at prices a little higher or lower. 
There are, however, only two basic reasons for changing 
Properly set full-line prices: 
I. A radical change in the purchasing power of the 
community that we serve. 
2. An important change in the value of the money with 
which it buys. 
Changes in the value of the commodity itself can be met 
by giving a better or less value for the same price. 
Of the fixed-price-level merchandisers, Woolworth’s is 
Certainly the most conspicuously successful. It is worth 
remembering that Woolworth’s stores held firmly to their 
five- and ten-cent prices throughout the war and the post- 
war inflation. 
Unquestionably it is to the advantage of a business that the 
full-line prices remain unaltered from year to year. A 
business may thereby acquire a ‘trade-mark’ value on its