32 
THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
the class of trade it is catering to will most willingly pay. 
We must keep in mind that unless this type of information is 
used discreetly, it may invalidate the greatest profit-making 
forces of the Model Stock Plan. 
4. Studying what other successful stores are selling, close 
examination of their goods, their prices, and their apparent 
volumes at these prices is, as we know, almost sure to be 
extremely helpful to us.2 By checking the different stores 
at the different levels of trade, we get a rather definite line 
on what is the best-selling price level for each of them. 
With these steps in research and reasoning, we now have 
our possible price limits rather closely ascertained. We have 
made this progress not by traditional thinking and opinions 
but by really scientific methods. Having applied ourselves 
with concentration to the question of fixing our prices, we 
have by now come near to testing our prices, which is far 
better than making them, as they are now for the most part 
made, by rule of thumb. Instead of setting our prices by 
what the producer asks, we set our costs by what we can 
afford to pay for the established price lines and, therefore, 
tend always to obtain better value for our customers at the 
prices they will most willingly pay.? It is recognized by 
successful business men that our most profitable job is to 
buy for customers and not simply to have in mind selling to 
them. 
This method of finding the right prices is not difficult. It 
requires, to begin with, somewhat more effort than does 
arbitrary opinion, but it is worth effort far beyond what it 
1 Of course, we know that price ranges of different stores overlap, and one 
range in one store is another range in another. And we do need the records, 
instead of guesses or memory, to know what we have actually sold the most 
of. But we must have in mind that these records may be wrong. We need 
to know how records may mislead us. 
2 Tt may be, of course, that all of our competitors are inferior to us in their 
knowledge of the price levels that pay best. But unless we are already using 
the Model Stock Plan this is most unlikely. 
3 The Model Stock Plan includes another very great aid to avoiding errors 
in establishing the price lines, as is explained in Chap. IIL, p. 46. Essentially 
this consists of establishing one outstanding value in each class of goods at 
each price, comparing each item in our whole line with this item, and then 
shopping competitors closely on this item.