BASEMENT STORES FOR THRIFTY CUSTOMERS 87 
likely to find that the same goods or similar goods will be 
offered by its competitors at prices cheaper than it is offering 
them. Such incidents hurt the goodwill and drawing power 
of the store; and on its goodwill and the drawing power arising 
from the uniformly better values to be found in the Model 
Stock three full lines, the Model Stock store depends for 
its large volume of sales and its greater total profits. It 
depends upon the customers being gradually educated to 
come to the Model Stock store notwithstanding competitors’ 
advertising of just such bargains as we bave been discussing. 
Suppose that a good-sized specialty stock comes to the 
store as distress merchandise at a price which would permit 
selling it below the cheapest full-line price—merchandise 
perhaps equal in quality to the highest-priced full line. 
Before the buyers of a store fully understand the Model 
Stock Plan, they might be tempted to slip such a buy into the 
full line which it most closely resembles; of course it will not 
be a complete stock. Experience will cure the store people 
of this inclination, as they recognize how such a procedure 
must harm the goodwill, the selling power of the Model Stock 
store, 
Job lots, odd lots, all the especially good buys at odd prices 
or lacking complete assortments go to the basement store. 
An essential of the Model Stock Plan which is frequently 
ignored through short-sighted intentness on getting the 
greatest immediate profit on a purchase of the sort we have 
been considering is the goodwill. The Model Stock store has 
carefully, painstakingly, built its whole goodwill on its uniformly 
good values in complete assortments. This goodwill is created 
and spread by customers who know from experience that 
they can always find at the proper time in the Model Stock 
store the size and color and style they want. No store can 
afford to sacrifice any share of so priceless a reputation for the 
sake of a small penny wise and pound foolish profit. 
Closely related is the problem that sometimes comes up 
when merchandise is offered at a cost to necessitate pricing 
it above the highest full line, yet so good a buy that the store 
cannot afford to pass it up. This, too, should go into the