124 
THE MODEL STOCK PLAN 
he buys, and he has time enough to finger through the bills 
to see what he has found it necessary to reorder. So, by 
memory and close contact he can keep: track of what he 
sells first and in largest quantities. His method is good. 
But let the store get bigger. The buyer of a department is 
no longer the proprietor pressed by the necessity of meeting 
the store’s bills. Pride in his own opinions, delight in special 
kinds of merchandise, or some other guiding motive may 
supplant in some degree the fundamental need of buying 
only what customers want to buy. 
This man puts in his sample lines for a first showing. 
Some of the samples sell quickly. In the press of affairs 
perhaps the buyer forgets that he ever had them. By the 
way they sold out, they appeared to be popular. But when 
the buyer comes to decide where he will bulk his orders, 
he often chooses to an indefensible, unadmitted degree from 
the stock that is left; in other words from that which did 
not sell so quickly. I have known this very thing to happen 
often. Frequently, the buyer does remember some sample 
that sold quickly. Frequently, his memory may be refreshed 
when he goes to the manufacturer to buy. 
At best, however, this method is uncertain. Very likely 
the buyer will reorder at least some styles for which his 
customers have shown no great liking. Some of the others 
that they chose first he will fail to reorder. Very often he 
will make his first purchases in too large quantities, with 
clever advertising and skilful salespeople will force their sale, 
and then, because he has sold a quantity of them, proceed 
to reorder them even though they are really not the best that 
the market affords nor in the long run the most satisfactory 
to the customer. That is not the best buying. 
The yellow-ticket method is designed to prevent these 
mistakes. It operates as follows: 
We go into the market. From all the manufacturers’ 
samples we pick out what experience teaches us to buy. We 
send these first purchases to the store, in small lots and often 
in single pieces only, and put on one piece of each lot a 
yellow ticket, which means “this piece is not to be sold.”