CHAPTER IX

THE MORE-PROFIT TIME TO SELL—THE SELLING
CALENDAR

The selling calendars dates and their problems. The yellow-ticket
method for safer buying. First showing should be early but not too
early. The opening controlled by completeness of stocks; highestpriced
 full line emphasized now. Mass selling when stocks are largest;
best-selling full line now emphasized. When to shift the emphasis to
cheapest full line. When to set “closing out’? and “end of season.”

IN planning for complete stocks, time is of major importance.
 To buy properly, to be of the greatest service to
customers and still to attain a sufficient rate of turnover and
a fair profit, it is obviously necessary to have goods when
customers want them and in the proper quantities to supply
this demand but not in excess of the proper quantities.
Obviously, if we have Christmas-tree ornaments on Oct.
1 but have none left by Dec. 15, we are.not offering our customers
 a complete stock of these goods at the very time when
they are most in demand. Almost as obviously, if we have
a stock of Christmas-tree ornaments complete on June 1,
it is not only doing us no good but also it is perhaps preventing
 us from buying enough Fourth-of-July bunting which we
shall have urgent calls for within two more weeks. Extreme
as these examples may be, they serve excellently to emphasize
that unless a stock is complete at the right time—and only
at the right time—it is not a Model Stock.
It is a part of the merchant’s job to know accurately when
people want the different kinds of goods; not only that but
also when the goods can be bought to the best advantage;
for manufacturers as well as retailers have to contend with a
seasonal demand, and the time of placing an order may have
much to do with the price. Every buyer has, therefore,
whether or not he formulates them consciously, what I
call “buying” calendars and “selling” calendars. The
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