THE MORE-PROFIT TIME TO SELL 129
on the yellow-ticket novelties. But we have not yet had the
mass judgment of a large number of people on them. We
get that later.
At the opening dale, the highest-priced full line should bear
the emphasis in our selling activities. This line must be
pushed and sold chiefly from the opening date to the time
of mass selling. Otherwise, we may have to take great
losses on it. In practice most merchants know that if at
the opening we give the strongest publicity to the best-
selling full line, we shall not sell our highest-priced full line
in sufficient quantities. Here lies a common reason for
heavy mark-downs. If we make this mistake and dispro-
portionately push and advertise our best-selling full line too
early—that is, before the time of mass selling—when the
time comes that it really should be pushed, it will be difficult
to advertise and otherwise present it in ways that are not
repetitions of what we have already done.
Moreover, any store that begins to advertise cheap goods
too early makes a bad impression on those customers who
would ordinarily buy the best-selling full line as well as the
highest-priced full line. Customers of our average and
higher-income classes would prefer to buy at stores that are
known to sell goods of the higher-price levels. This is true
even of the customers who actually buy the cheapest full line.
So, if we advertise and display prominently our cheap
goods too early, the whole buying public gets the impression
that if an article comes from our store, they are convicted
of buying at a cheap establishment. Practically all of
our customers had rather buy their goods in the highest-
class stores, if they can get them there at fair prices that they
can afford to pay. Consequently, we must, if we hope to
earn the greatest total profits, carefully avoid doing anything
that will make our store’s label represent in the public's
mind a store specializing in cheap goods.
Now we come to the third portion of the selling calendar,
the time of mass selling. This is the time for a hard sales
drive, and the date should be determined by three distinct
considerations. It should begin:
