AN ENTIRE STOCK OF BARGAINS 159
us with better and better goods on which we can make the
greatest total profits.
What we want is to cooperate sincerely with the producer
to help him eliminate the major wastes of production so
that we, and through us our customers, may share in what
he saves. We distinctly do not want to buy under conditions
that needlessly handicap him. Nor should we, on the other
hand, encourage a manufacturing condition that is basically
wrong.
The way that the three full-line prices of the Model Stock
Plan fit into this program has been explained in considerable
detail in preceding chapters. Briefly, when the price that
a buyer can pay for goods is set by the Model Stock Plan,
we must bear in mind that the buyer may pay any price that
he wants to, as an experimental first purchase, even up to the
full retail price of the item, rather than pass it up or try to
sell it at an in-between price. If then he finds that the goods
so obtained have a real appeal to his customers at a full
line price, he can work with the manufacturer, over a rea-
sonable period, to reduce its cost; for example, by giving
large orders for production in the producer’s dull season, itis
usually possible to get the item down to a cost on which the
store can make a profit and which, at the same time, is fair
to the producer.
Tt will pay any buyer to think through—and put down on
paper—the advantages and disadvantages of various types of
resources: manufacturing by the store itself; local manufac-
turers, if we are not located in a central market; local jobbers;
large manufacturers in central markets; large-city jobbers;
country manufacturers; mill agents; and the big commission
houses. The subject is one that any intelligent buyer knows
about, if he will stop to think it out, and it does not deserve
the considerable space that it would require if we were to treat
it in this book. We must study our resources constantly
and know where the strength of each one lies. The price we
have to pay for having good resources is eternal vigilance.
One of the most important and least understood phases of
merchandising is the advantage that comes from active
