234 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
sufficiently to increase sales to the point where they will 
keep his salespeople busy more of the time, and where, con- 
sequently, he will make greater total profits, 
The experienced merchant will probably say that the 
department head will not gain any advantage from this; 
that, instead, he will be starting a price war, for all of his 
important competitors will meet his new prices. 
The answer to this objection is that at present only com- 
petitors who are well located centrally can profitably continue 
to sell staples at smaller than usual unit profits. Actually, 
it is to the interest of our store as well as of competing stores 
to do this. Nothing else will so definitely draw crowds 
of customers to any retail district as having all of the stores 
selling a volume of staples at the lower price and continuing 
to do it because it pays. Such selling of staples at low prices, 
drawing greatly increased numbers of customers to our 
general location, will increase total sales and total profits 
for all of the central stores. As we have already seen,! 
good hard competition increases total profits for every well- 
operated store engaged in this competition by drawing trade 
from less active competitors and from other trading centers. 
This is an instance of how, operating under the Model Stock 
Plan, we can profit in collateral ways. 
Then, too, there is another possibility in handling our 
novelty lines. Of course, novelties ought to turn as quickly 
as possible, the quicker the better. Under the Model Stock 
Plan we shall find it most desirable to determine accurately, 
with the best facts possible and the best judgment on these 
facts, how long novelties shall be kept. Losses on novelties 
are not losses in money alone. Quite as important are the 
store’s losses of reputation that come from not having newer 
goods that should succeed the novelties on hand, and such 
losses of reputation seriously impair sales volume. 
It is probable that some method like the automatic bargain 
basement plan might be used, with predetermined times for 
YE Sram impress 
* The actual dollars-and.cents value of brisk competition as an aid to 
increasing our total profits‘is explained in some detail in Chap. XI, p. 1z0.