MORE PROFITS FOR PRODUCERS 189
quote from Roy E. Tilles, vice president and general manager
of the company, by this plan it manufactures “daily, not
monthly, to meet the direct and immediate demand placed
apon the merchant by his customers and so runs no risk of
farge inventories and ultimate heavy losses.” This is, of
course, equally profitable to the merchant, for it leads straight
toward one of the major goals of the Model Stock Plan:
to provide the right goods, in the right quantities, at the
right time, at the right prices.
Daily reports from 8o to roo kev stores on total sales and
sales by color and style give the manufacturer a constantly
corrected picture of retail sales in different parts of the coun-
try. It can, therefore, pass on to all dealers constructive
suggestions about their individual store sales if these in
any harmful way vary from the experience of the many
reporting key stores. This service from the manufacturer
to the store acts as an inducement for the store to use the
automatic reorder plan.
Incidentally, of course, it is far more tactful to give the
dealer this comparison with what other dealers are doing than
it would be to base the criticism on the plan itself, for that
would constitute asserting the manufacturer’s own authority.
It is extremely important that when a manufacturer adopts
a model stock, he present it with real diplomacy and sales-
manship. Otherwise, he is in danger of telling his dealers
how to run their own businesses—something that few retailers
relish from a producer.
Each item in the Gotham model stock is checked regularly
just as soon as it gets low. Between the second and third
pairs of the three pairs of stockings in a box is placed a
gummed label which bears the style number, size, and color
of the item in the box. When the saleswoman comes to this
label, she fastens it on a stock sheet that goes to the factory
as a reorder. Reorders are filled the same day if the sheet
is received before 4 p.m. At the end of each month a sales
analysis is made for the individual store; styles and colors
that do not sell are withdrawn from the model stock and are
replaced by fast-moving items. Retail rate of turnover has
