30 
THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
Or let us consider an enlightening instance in connection 
with store statistics and comparative competitive prices 
which still exists in the men’s shoe department at one 
metropolitan store. The cheapest full line was formerly 
$7.50; it has been reduced to $6 and by store statistics looks 
right; but it is still too high for the store’s trade. In this 
town are successful Thom McAn $4 shoe shops and many $3 
specialty shoe shops. It therefore becomes clear that $6 
is not the right price for the cheapest full line! 
If you and I are already alert, progressive retailers, we 
may feel that, as yet, there has been disclosed no important 
difference between what the Model Stock Plan requires and a 
great many of our established practices. Practically all 
retailers do actually—perhaps almost instinctively—buy 
large quantities of merchandise around the few prices for 
each line of goods at which that line sells in the greatest 
quantity. The point is that it is in its last § Or 10 per cent 
of technical improvement over current practices that the 
Model Stock Plan offers its greatest opportunities to increase 
total profits. The Model Stock Plan helps us to know that we 
know. It helps us to analyze what we know and gives us the 
knowledge which means the difference between the greatese 
total profits and merely acceptable total profits. Probably, 
as the new methods of distribution, the new competition, now 
so clearly on the way become more widespread and effective, 
this knowledge will mean the difference between success and 
failure, 
In setting our full-line prices store statistics and even 
competitive statistics are of less importance than the 
beginner at the Model Stock Plan might think. It is clear 
that regardless of what we have been selling or what com- 
petitors have been selling, the cheapest full line is made by 
production costs—by what we can buy it for. 
t In the store in question, the competition on these cheaper shoes is being 
met in its very successful basement store. But this does not alter the fact 
that the cheapest full line of the main store is improperly set. And if this 
store were not equipped with a better than ordinary basement store, its loss 
of sales volume from this cause would be serious.