DOING MORE BUSINESS ON SMALLER STOCKS 115 
With a proper plan it is possible to build up a really com- 
plete stock and keep it complete with safety, fitting the real 
needs of customers. No buyer can hope to keep a complete 
stock unless the management makes plans to help him turn 
the complete stock often. Suppose a given stock is $50,000 
and monthly sales are very small, say $5,000. The ordinary 
procedure would be to cut down the stock to $12,000 or 
$15,000. If the Model Stock Plan shows that for a complete 
stock we must have a $50,000 investment, we know that we 
must push up sales to $18,000 or $20,000 each month. With 
this knowledge so definitely forced upon us, it is almost 
certain that we shall so increase our sales; for no advertising 
that competitors can put behind their incomplete stocks 
can more than temporarily prevent the customers from com- 
ing and buying from our complete stock. Complete stocks 
confined to the mass-selling prices—that is the first step 
toward this more-total-profit goal. 
The Model Stock Plan is not something that was thought 
out at one sitting in a book-lined study far from commercial 
distractions. It started in a struggling little store with 
ambitions for greatness. The plan grew under practical 
conditions and was modified and improved with actual 
experience and commercial research as the store became 
larger and more prosperous. Despite all of the ambition 
and energy and hard work that went into the making of the 
store, the process would have been comparatively far slower 
and more painful and risky without the guidance that the 
Model Stock Plan gave management and buyers. 
Great as have been its demonstrated possibilities in the 
past, they are far exceeded by its value now in this Second 
I 
i With the Filene store in Boston operating—as it has for many years 
operated—on the principle of self-government by the fellow workers, the 
Model Stock Plan has never been applied completely throughout the store, 
It has been used only to the extent that the fellow workers in charge of 
various responsibilities have understood its value; and there has admittedly 
been room for a better selling job than was ever done in this connection. 
Everywhere in the store the Model Stock Plan has had its effect, in some 
divisions more than in others and at some periods more than at others. 
Yet, frankly, the store has never typified the possibilities of the Model Stock 
Plan when it is applied scientifically and fully.