THE MORE-PROFIT TIME TO SELL 125 
Yellow is used as a distinguishing color and to serve as a 
warning. If a customer wants to buy a piece of merchandise 
that bears a yellow ticket, we will accept a special order for 
it; but the sample must not leave the store. Its usefulness 
would end if it were disposed of. The object of having it 
is to hear and record the comments of as many customers as 
possible and to find whether or not they approve of it. 
Ti sufficient demand develops for a given yellow-ticket 
sample, we may reorder a small quantity so as not to lose 
customers who refuse to wait for a special order to go through; 
or, in departments where the articles tested by the yellow- 
ticket method require the purchase of fair quantities, we 
might buy a relatively small quantity and put a yellow ticket 
on only one piece, allowing the others to be sold. 
The yellow-ticket piece must be kept. The entire value 
of the method lies in enforcing such a rule. Thus the buyer 
will have before him, when the time to reorder comes, sam- 
ples not only of what customers liked but also of what they 
did not like. These latter will aid him in avoiding the pur- 
chase, in quantity, of unwanted merchandise. 
The very first buying, therefore, will be guessing; but the 
reorders will all be the choice of our customers. The earliest 
buying is by customers who do not represent the mass 
demand that is coming later on. So the very first sales must 
not be taken to indicate conclusively what will be the bulk 
of the demand during the season. They may be taken 
merely as showing the general compass direction, with a 
large likelihood of error.! 
We can meet this probability of error scientifically by 
placing small first reorders. It is easy to do this if we start 
early enough with our first showing. Manufacturers will 
not yet be too busy. After we have reordered once and then 
again, we may increase the order. Gradually, guessing 
1 Most buyers will find out of their own experience that some of the state~ 
ments here are commonplace. But by refreshing our memories they help 
us to compare the results of our own successful experience with these phases 
of the Model Stock Plan, and, hence, to appreciate some of its less obvious 
methods and principles which offer us opportunities for increases in total 
profits and, consequently, still more successful careers.