20 
THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
have been at the very lowest price levels, where every kind 
of hindrance to the full development of the Model Stock Plan 
is met with and where the development of the possibilities 
of this plan is hampered and diminished. The lines of 
merchandise at levels above five- and ten-cent retail levels 
have never had the benefit of one-tenth the effort that has 
for years been devoted by manufacturers and producers 
to getting their goods into mass production at the prices 
that Woolworth’s can afford to pay. 
The opportunity that awaits us when we apply the same 
process to our higher-priced lines is proportionately ten 
times greater than Woolworth’s. There is, as yet, no real 
competition of mass distribution in the higher-priced fields. 
Our dress department buyer will employ his ability and 
skill to devise ways to buy a dress intended to retail for 
$30 or even $35 at a cost—through cooperating with the 
manufacturer, probably by a bulk order—so that he can 
retail it for $25. The great power of the Model Stock Plan 
is that the buyer must use all his ability and experience to get 
these better goods at his three full-line prices. From experience 
I know that for the highest-priced full line we can obtain 
almost all goods above the highest full-line price that can 
be sold in large quantities. 
But just when the store owner or department buyer who has 
been doing things in the old way believes he is convinced 
that he should have only three full-line prices at, say, $15, 
$25, and $35, into his mind will come something like this: 
“I shall get a dress offered me at wholesale for $15 or $16 and, 
therefore, I shall need a price at $22.50. Or goods will be 
offered me at $12 that my competitor will probably sell at 
$18. Therefore I must have in-between prices.” 
He does not need any in-between prices. Neither do we. 
Let us assume that in our store, before applying the Model 
Stock Plan to one of the three price levels, we had six prices 
including $15 and up to but not including $25. At these six 
prices we regularly sold a total of 1,200 dresses per season, so 
we bought an average of 200 dresses at each of these prices. 
But when we applied the Model Stock Plan we eliminated five