CHOOSING PRICE LEVELS TO INCREASE SALES 23 
line prices those articles which cannot immediately, in spite 
of our utmost exertions, be bought to sell at the full rate of 
profit at the full-line price. Under traditional methods, 
these items would be marked at in-between prices to yield 
the planned profit of the department. By our plan, even 
though these goods might have to be sold at a smaller per- 
centage of profit at the full-line price, it can be seen at once 
how much better it is to draw with special attractions to a 
full-line price where the customer will find an incomparably 
better assortment than competitors have at the advertised 
special bargain price for which she comes into the store. 
No experienced retailer believes he can sell all customers 
from advertised lots; there are too many variations in desires 
as to style, color, and so on. But at the full-line prices we 
are almost sure to have a stock adequate to meet these 
variations in desires. 
Another real advantage of having three scientifically set 
price lines has to do with the trend toward mergers, consolida- 
tions, the formation of voluntary chains, and buying groups. 
The time is coming, and soon, when practically every store 
will be forced by competition to avail itself of the buying 
advantages of some one of these modern merchandising 
forms. 
But as all of us know who have had any experience with 
group buying, the greatest handicap to its proper functioning 
is the difficulty of agreeing on the prices that goods are to be 
boughttosell at. Togettheadvantageof mass buying, orders 
must be large enough to permit the manufacturer to make 
mass-production economies. In group buying such orders 
are generally possible only if all of the member stores agree 
upon the three factually determined price levels for each class 
of merchandise. So if our store operates on three price 
levels properly set under the Model Stock Plan, we are in 
the best possible situation to band ourselves with other 
Model Stock Plan stores to get the greater profits attainable 
from consolidating the orders of many stores. 
Let us now tabulate the major more-profit advantages 
from using the three full lines of a Model Stock: