THE MORE-PROFIT TIME TO BUY 145
When the manufacturer’s busiest season is over, our great
need is for quick deliveries. Our retail selling season is still
good. Itis then that we can begin to choose, with some rea-
son for dictating, what manufacturers ought to give us.
That is true also of the next date on the buying calendar,
which is the time when the manufacturer’s job season begins.
The job season is usually called the “dull” season. I
call it the “job” season to bring home its full significance
from the merchant’s point of view. The manufacturer,
for the sake of keeping his organization intact and his plant
running, can afford to take a theoretical loss. It need not be
a real loss. By keeping busy in what would otherwise be a
time of comparative idleness, he not only keeps down the
overhead expense per dollar of annual sales volume in addi-
tion to keeping his organization intact but also he may be
able to buy his raw materials more cheaply. The merchant,
for his part, needs bargain lots that he can feature in adver-
tising, He also needs reorders of his good staples. We
shall usually find it advantageous to give the business then
to those manufacturers who gave our orders preference in
tush times.
We should understand, at this point, that one object in
merchandising by the Model Stock Plan is to keep busy more
days in the week and more months in the year. If we succeed
in getting a large enough part of our working force to under-
stand the fundamental principles and laws involved in the
Model Stock Plan, we can do this. There is no miracle
connected with its accomplishment. And when we succeed,
our cost of doing business, other things being equal, is less,
we can give better service, sell cheaper, and show newer goods
and better styles. Moreover, we thereby help the manu-
facturer to be more valuable to himself and to us by assisting
him to reduce the amount of the idle time of his factory.
The final date on the buying calendar is the end of the
season. At this time we should certainly be ready to take
advantage of the final offerings of manufacturers, when they
are willing to sell more cheaply than they have sold at any
other time. Thus we can serve our customers by giving them
