200 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
customers; help him really to attain the factory economies 
of mass production as against small-lot, sporadic production. 
All these are definite savings of most important wastes. 
To all of these savings the Model Stock Plan leads, because 
it provides a simple, easy, and definite system that makes it 
possible for us to work closely with the producer and assist 
him in doing away with these wastes. It is such wastes that 
prevent his giving us the best types of merchandise at prices 
far lower than he has ever found possible before. For all 
merchants know that any losses which resources take must, 
if the resource is to continue in business, be passed along 
to the merchant and thus, in turn, to the consumer. 
In general, it is true that the larger the order the less per 
unit of output it costs the manufacturer to put the lot through 
his plant. Merchants have gone a long distance away from 
the old-fashioned practice of placing a whole season’s order 
at one time, perhaps months ahead of the delivery date. 
Hand-to-mouth buying has superseded it to an important 
degree; there is nothing in sight to warrant the belief that 
the old practice will ever come back, unless temporarily in 
a pronounced seller’s market. 
But if, through the complete stocks of staples and attrac- 
tive style goods at excellent price values made possible by 
the Model Stock Plan in our store, we succeed in increasing 
our sales volume largely and also concentrate our purchasing 
at only three price levels, so that each of our orders is several 
times as large as before, we permit the resource to approach 
mass-production methods in turning out our goods. 
Moreover, this gets us prompt deliveries. In many lines 
of manufacturing the producer is likely to hold any given 
small order until he can accumulate enough of them to make 
a profitable factory batch. But if our order, whether of 
staples or style goods, is large enough to permit the more 
important economies of mass production, it usually is placed 
ahead of the small orders. 
Group buying brings much the same results. In effect, 
in group buying the manufacturer gets the combined orders 
of a number of stores which, even if not large individually,