WHAT IS A MODEL STOCK? 47
enough from memory. But memory is treacherous. The
best and most profitable way is to refresh our memory of the
stock constantly by actually handling the goods.
The results of actually laying out, seeing, and handling the
goods are sometimes startling.! No buyer who fails to do
it, who thinks he lacks space or time or the need to do it
properly, can make the best of the Model Stock Plan or the
greatest success of which he is capable. It has constantly
helped the Filene store in Boston to correct stocks and
successfully to put in lines on which at the start there was
no business. It means a little more work; but nothing short
of it will produce a Model Stock and the larger total profits
possible from such a stock. It is surprising how many errors
and mark-downs this method forestalls.
The buyer has perhaps bought a line very carefully—the
best-selling full line, let us say. Then he lays out the
cheapest full line and the highest-priced full line beside it.
Very often, as I know from experience, he finds something
in the cheapest full line that for some reason is as attractive
as anything in the best-selling full line; or he finds something
in the best-selling full line that would sell against something
else in the highest-priced full line even at the same price.
When making the comparison, it is best to start with the
cheapest full line.2 Lay out the BB first. We shall assume
1 This has its basis in science. Individuals may be classified as having
auditory, visual, tactual memories—which means that some of us remember
best what we learn by hearing, others by seeing, others by feeling, and so on.
Our thinking is largely based on our remembering. We are working accord-
ing to the principles of psychology, therefore, when we lay out the goods for
comparison.
* The proper procedures in comparison and in buying are exactly opposite.
In making a comparison the merchant wants to get firmly in mind his cheapest
lines so that he can then make sure that his higher-priced lines compare
favorably with them in value and in appeal to the customer. In other words,
in making a comparison he is trying to look at his goods with the eyes of a
seller. But when he is looking over the manufacturers’ lines, he is looking
at the goods with the eyes of a retail customer. This is why, in buying, he
finds it most profitable first to look over the highest-priced goods in the
market and place no orders in any price lines until he knows all that he can
possibly know about styles and standards at the highest-priced levels. The
reason for this is that the average customer tries to buy what she has seen,
whether it is porcelain, furniture, dresses, or whatnot, in the houses and other
possession of the richer “society”? type of people whom she wishes to emu-
