GREATER PROFITS FOR EVERY BUSINESS 221
to cooperate with the producer and distributor; by doing
this they would be busy 24 hours a day instead of using their
rails profitably less than half the time. Thus they could
manifestly bring about enormous reductions in the costs
of handling each unit of freight.
It is clear that if all these different lines of business had
long ago applied the Model Stock Plan principles to their
problems, they would have found it very profitable. Every
year since publication of my first book on the Model Stock
Plan has shown that more and more kinds of businesses have
found it profitable to apply the principles of the Model Stock
Plan. These are not only the most successful producers
in their lines but also they are rapidly dominating their
fields. Time is of the essence in the greatest success; and
in any line, the first comers who adopt the Model Stock Plan
principles will be strongly entrenched against those who lag
behind in taking advantage of these progressive more-total-
profit principles.
As we have already seen, simplification and standardiza-
tion are saving hundreds of millions of dollars annually in
the United States through the elimination of unnecessary
varieties. The Model Stock Plan, is, after all, founded on
the simplification and standardization of prices, where far
greater savings are possible.
If it seems that these claims are too broad, let us consider
for a moment the tremendous successes already made—and
the great start therefore already attained over present and
possible future competition—by the single price, or in some
instances two-price, chains such as Woolworth’s, Kresge’s,
Grant’s, Thom McAn shoes, many dress shops, and any
number of similar organizations. Or consider one instance
from the department store field. Men’s shoes have not
been very profitable in most department stores. In many
stores they have been very unprofitable.
The Retail Research Association, composed of leading
stores in 18 cities, decided to adopt the three full-line prices
in the men’s shoe departments of its stores which had largely
been unprofitable. Then the R. R. A, brought to bear on the
