MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN DISTRIBUTION 233 
automobile, there is a scientific way to eliminate human 
friction. The Model Stock Plan is this way, and the depart- 
ment head, regarding himself as a selling partner, will employ 
all of the aid it affords to conquer the friction within his 
department so that it may earn the greatest total profits. 
In fact, when the buyer emphasizes selling as the most 
important factor in increasing his department’s total profits, 
a great deal of friction is. automatically removed. For the 
first time, his principal interest is the same as the principal 
interest of every selling employee. 
This selling viewpoint will be applied to many corollary 
problems with greater total profit results. For instance, we 
assume, as do most merchants, that staples may be permitted 
to turn rather slowly. But when a department head han- 
dling a staple line really applies his mind and his energies 
to this question, he will find he can profitably increase the 
rate of turnover of his staple merchandise to a figure far 
more rapid than is at present believed possible. 
Thinking of his job as primarily selling, the department 
head will inevitably become concerned with the excessive 
cost of distribution, for certainly it seems excessive when it 
costs more to distribute the average goods than to make 
them.! He will have borne home to him, spending so much 
time on the selling floor, that one of the major wastes in the 
store is the enforced leisure of many of the store employees. 
Few selling departments are busy more than half of the time. 
As the outcome of this thinking, he is likely to arrive at 
some ideas which, while materially different from currently 
accepted practice, may increase his department’s total profits. 
Putting together his desire for a more rapid rate of turnover 
on staples and his desire to employ more effectively the facil- 
ities of his department, he may decide that since his store is 
centrally located in a territory of large purchasing power from 
which he can draw more trade, he will undertake something 
radically different. He will reduce the mark-up on staples 
in. 
1 As has been pointed out, Chap. 1, p. 11, the bulk of the merchandise for 
vhich the consumer’s income is spent at least doubles in price from the 
yroducer to the consumer.