240 THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
department immediately after the goods are received may 
not be there again for a week, and she, therefore, gets the 
impression that we are a week earlier in our showing. More- 
over, by finding out so much more quickly which of these 
goods sell, we shall probably get our reorders into manu- 
facturers’ hands at least a full day earlier. When the manu- 
facturer is entering his rush season, this single day may mean 
as much as a week’s difference in his delivery. 
Of course, no goods should have the tags removed and be 
distributed until the buyer who ordered the goods has seen 
and passed them, and until some test of the size accuracy 
has been made. If the man who placed the order is still 
away at the central market, he will have provided some one 
at the store with such detailed information on his purchases 
that he can authoritatively accept the shipment in place of 
the buyer and get it into the selling stock. 
These are the only people competent to pass incom- 
ing shipments. To place goods in selling stock before they 
have been passed in this way is a practice dangerous to the 
store’s profits. It is costly, both through the ill effect on 
goodwill of selling to customers goods which are not right 
and the increase in returned goods which results when cus- 
tomers find the defects and send back the merchandise for 
credits or refunds.! 
This calls for the full cooperation of every buyer, whether 
the department head or an assistant. No intelligent mer- 
chant wishes to subject his buyers to hampering restrictions 
of personal freedom. But it should, and must, be a matter 
of pride with everybody in the department, from the depart- 
ment head to the newest stock boy, to get goods through 
receiving and into selling stock in the shortest possible time. 
Under the Model Stock Plan, as we know, selling becomes 
cooperation between the store and the public rather than an 
"1 Along the same line of thought, the buyer who emphasizes the importance 
of selling may well make provision to label every piece of merchandise 
clearly to tell of what it is composed, whether it will wash, and the good 
qualities as well as the bad qualities. On a pure silk stocking, for instance, 
the label might well point out: “Its dye is lasting, has been tested, and is the 
best that experience can produce. Because it is pure, sheer silk, this hosiery 
will not last so long as a cotton stocking.”