232 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
tion, his customers are asking for and what, therefore, will 
yield the most sales, then the arrangement will be far more 
profitable than if the buyer absents himself from the store a 
large proportion of the time to place orders for what he thinks 
or is told his customers want. It is preposterous to suppose 
that the buyer's own status or income is going to be hurt 
by having his assistant actually place the orders. Placing 
orders is, of course, part of buying, but it is not the most 
important part in relation to making the greatest total profits 
and the least total mark-downs, The really important part 
of buying is buying for the customers, finding out what they 
want, and seeing that it is placed in stock more quickly than 
competitors get it. 
This shift in emphasis helps us to eliminate one of the 
great weaknesses of the currently accepted method. The 
department head who thinks his most profitable function is 
buying naturally believes that all of his buying is right, and 
that any difficulties in selling what he buys are due to other 
causes. Every retailer has seen instances where goods do not 
sell and the blame is laid on the salespeople or the advertising, 
when, actually, it is frequently the fault of the goods. When 
the department head begins to think of himself as a seller 
and delegates much of the actual buying, he gets the depart- 
ment as a whole into perspective. 
A major reason why the selling is frequently not so effective 
as it should be is that friction exists. Considering himself a 
seller, the department head will be most interested in any 
cause that interferes with getting to the customer the full 
value of his stock; he will be intent on finding the cause of 
any friction in the department and removing it, whether it 
is friction of personalities, environment, prices, styles, or 
whatever it may be. Asa buyer, he may and frequently does 
consider this the duty of someone else. 
If this same buyer hears a friction noise in his automobile, 
he stops the car instantly and hunts out the trouble. No 
friction in machinery is, however, so important as the friction 
of human beings in. his department. Just as there is an 
expert approach to’finding and correcting the friction in an