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THE MUSIC TRADE
W
E have been engaged for over a year in the somewhat tedious
process of getting over a speculative debauch, and we are not
likely to repeat the same offense at once. Enormous improvements
were made in nearly all departments of industry which in many in-
stances have not begun to earn on the capital invested. Only time
can convert a burden into an ample source of revenue. Any embar-
rassment due to poor crops would therefore have to come at a time of
recovery when shocks were hard to bear.
While it has been recognized fully that the bountiful harvest
would do much to speed us upon the road of times of abnormal act-
tivity and prosperity, we have had a pretty narrow escape from
savage punishments for extravagances of speculation, so the voice of
the boomer will not be dangerous.
REVIEW
sales were better, and the instalment payments came in more
promptly and with scarcely an effort. He remarked that he had
instilled into the minds of his salesmen that they should impress upon
their customers the importance of meeting their payments. He
further remarked that the only means that he had of maintaining
his credit, was to meet his obligations, and if he did not realize ac-
cording to agreement upon the sales which he made there was dis-
satisfaction and disappointment all along the line.
T
H E prosperity of large agricultural returns comes at a particu-
larly opportune period, and will do much to restore confidence.
It would seem as if the government reports are in perfect har-
mony with the various reports which have been presented weekly in
The Reveiw. There is a determination among piano men to do busi-
ness, but to do it along more conservative lines. There is an un-
mistakable desire to draw in a bit, and not place pianos out on all
kinds of terms to all kinds of people. A finer discrimination should
be used, no doubt about it, and it will operate decidedly to the ad-
vantage of the trade as a whole.
H E R E is nothing so valuable to a business man as his credit,
and nothing which should be guarded so jealously, and there
is no way so easy of building up a credit and maintaining it as by
sacredly meeting obligations. Unprofitable book accounts oftentimes
bring considerably greater losses than even the loss of the money
itself. They bring the loss of time, loss of the profit, loss of the
bookkeeper's time, and often with an attorney's and court fee added.
If these could be done away with the expense of doing business
would be greatly reduced, and the net profits would be much larger.
We may add, incidentally, the worry of business which threatens
the life of many a man would be greatly lessened. A careless and
indifferent collection department is sure to break up any business no
matter how strongly entrenched it may be. The wise piano man
keeps an eye on his collection department, and he also is exceedingly
careful not to take on accounts which look from the start hopeless.
T
T
T
RADE, of course, now at the close of the summer is moderate,
and it is characterized by a discrimination m ordering that is
not at all to be commended. Dealers should lose no time in^placing
their orders, and it would seem from our reports from the factories
that orders during the past week have increased in frequency and
volume, while manufacturers in some lines have increased their out-
put, and are now employing more help.
The presence of a number of dealers in town shows that they are
getting ready for fall, and it is quite time they should, for September
is almost here, and when September comes it is to hustle.
T
H E R E is no doubt that there are some men who are pushing
their business to extreme limits, and many of the troubles
which are coming to them are of their own making through over-
anxiety to increase sales too often at the expense of good judgment
in sacrificing quality sales for quantity sales. Common prudence
should dictate that a piano sale is a poor one if not sold to a re-
sponsible party. It is not the number of sales that pay, but it is the
kind of sales. It is impossible to sell enough pianos on a strictly
cash basis to make the business pay, because the entire retail de-
partment of the industry is lined up against such an undertaking.
ND then again methods of selling all kinds of products on the
instalment plan has extended to every department of trade.
There are more books sold to-day on the easy payment plan in one
year than were sold on the cash basis in five years. Men are building
up libraries on the instalment plan, who never would feel able to do
it if they were compelled to put the dollars down every time a set of
books was purchased, and there are tens of thousands of pianos sold
annually that never would find a location outside of the wareroom
were it not for the fact that they were, to use the old autoharp phrase,
easy to play and easy to buy.
It is useless to discuss the advantages or drawbacks of the in-
stalment system; it is here to stay until some better plan is devised,
and no one seems to have thought out a more satisfactory system.
A
T
H E R E are some men, however, who seem imbued with the de-
termination that getting out pianos in quantity is a sure in-
dication of doing business. It may be an indication of business
activity, but great care should be used that it is not the road which
leads to business ruin. It isn't the number of sales that are made,
but the quality of sales that pay, and a number of ambitious sales-
men do not sometimes exercise the care they should in getting out
instruments to the proper parties on the instalment plan.
Pianos which are retaken are always reduced in price, and
moreover there is always a responsibility and a loss attended with
each re-possession.
W
H I L E chatting along these lines a dealer from the West who
called upon The Review remarked that he had endeavored
to hammer that very point into the minds of his salesmen, and that
he had found during the past year that his work had borne results.
He had not sold as many instruments as the previous year but his
H E R E has been recently a collapse of two or three small piano
concerns in New York, and in each case supply men were
among the heaviest losers. We had thought that the time had long
since gone by when it was possible for a man with a large amount of
nerve and an oily tongue to secure sufficient credit to engage in the
manufacture of a few pianos, but it seems in this particular we were
somewhat mistaken.
GLANCE at the advertising pages of The Review this month
will show that manufacturers realize that the time has come
to enter into an active advertising campaign. A local manufacturer
said, less courage is required to make an extensive advertising cam-
paign when trade is active, but valuable as advertising may be, that
it is more needed and the results more welcome when the season is
dull. He added that he never attempted to economize in advertising
because of dull trade and he did not regret it. Now the fall season
is fairly started in and progressive manufacturers are realizing the
necessity of being well before their constituency.
A
I
T was some years ago when The Review seriously took up the
advocacy of the one price system. At that time we offered a
cash prize for the best article in support of rigidity in piano prices.
The publicity which we gave the subject created widespread interest,
and later we also addressed circular letters to thousands of dealers
over the country asking their opinion as to the advisability of stand-
ing up squarely to the adoption of one price.
Naturally the persistent agitation of this subject aroused much
interest and the Manufacturers
and Dealers' Association
when convened in Baltimore adopted resolutions favoring the general
adoption of one price for pianos.
In the minds of fair-minded men there is no doubt but that The
Review was an active force in bringing about bettered sale con-
ditions in the retail department of the industry.
OWEVER the adoption of the one price system would have
come about in the course of time as a matter of business ex-
pediency. When all other stores held fixedly to one price piano men
could not long stay outside of the one price family. One price is
business honesty, and at the present time its systematic advocacy is
in line. In almost every town in the United States there are some
dealers who stand firmly by their prices. They have found that it
pays. Their competitors are beginning to learn that the honest
profit in business is the paying one and they too are falling in line.
So w T e may consider that the one price system is generally in use in
this industry, although of course there are sporadic cases where there
is elasticity of prices, and in the same places it is safe to say that cor-
rect values are not placed upon instruments.
It is a libel on the industry however, to claim that the piano
business to-day is not run upon fair lines. There has been a wonder-
ful reform in that respect during the past few years, and all evils
however will not be entirely remedied until we have an entirely new
set of men.
H