BASEMENT STORES FOR THRIFTY CUSTOMERS 8s 
quality so that customers will always be satisfied; they must 
be of sufficiently reliable quality so that they fit into the 
store’s policy guaranty of selling only reliable goods, however 
low the price. This requirement that the basement do the 
bulk of its sales volume at prices below the three full-line 
pricesis the reason why a basement store ordinarily should not 
be installed in a store doing the bulk of its trade in the 
cheapest goods. 
The second rule of basement store operation—this, too, 
is almost universally accepted by experienced merchants— 
has two parts: (a) the basement should operate on a less 
elaborate basis of personal service to customers, thus reduc- 
ing its proportion of expense to sales; (0) in consequence, 
customers have the right to expect in the basement store 
values even better than those of the upstairs departments. 
In the Model Stock store, as we know, the values of the three 
full lines of the upstairs departments have been so built 
up by comparison with the BB’s that they should be 
uniformly better than the values offered by any competitors 
who are not using the Model Stock Plan. So the basement 
values must indeed be exceptional. 
Plainly, the Model Stock store cannot obtain these extra- 
ordinary values throughout the basement by more aggressive 
search for good values than is employed in buying for the 
three full lines, nor can it obtain them by helping manufac- 
turers eliminate wastes still further; for if the full-line buyers 
are functioning properly, they are already using these 
methods to the limit of ordinary human ingenuity and ability. 
Instead, in the basement store it is necessary in many 
instances to sacrifice for the sake of price and of better values 
one of the other essentials of a full line; namely, to give up 
the insistence on completeness of assortment in styles, colors, 
sizes, materials. 
Intentionally permitting basement stocks to omit com- 
pleteness of assortments leads straight to the one class of 
purchases that will give customers better values, dollar for 
dollar, than the upstairs, full-line values: goods that can be 
bought regardless of the cost of producing them. Every