Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUJIC TfyVDE
V O L LII. N o . 1
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI at 1 Madison Ave., New York, Jan. 7,1911
SIN
CENTS.
%? O P P ER S YEAIL
The Real Trade Standards
T
HERE are constant changes going on in the piano trade which must be apparent to all who have
studied the retail situation even superficially, and it must be apparent to many that we are pro-
ceeding at a pace in some directions which, if not interrupted, will have a demoralizing effect
upon the future of piano selling.
Scan the papers containing piano advertisements East, West, North and South, and it would seem as
if price were the only bait offered to the purchasing public.
It would seem, too, as if money was no object to piano merchants—that any time and any terms
would be given to people who would take pianos, Just simply come and get them.
Now, by pursuing such a course we are getting far away from a safe anchorage, and it does not
require a great prophetic vision to see the annihilation of trade standards if there is not a halt called upon
such methods.
Piano merchants must realize that there is a money standard which must be considered if the stabil-
ity of the trade is to be insured; and if the atmosphere of cheapness is permitted to engulf the piano
business, why, down it goes to the bottom of the trade abyss where sewing machines, carpet sweepers
and other objects of purely commercial standards are placed.
There should be a complete rehabilitation of sales methods which have a tendency to pull the busi-
ness down, and the price standard should be nailed'to the trade mast in the New Year.
A great many dealers have gone sales mad on the matter of selling low-priced pianos at prices which
are inconsistent with the values delivered.
They seem to think that such methods are not only correct but they are profit making, which they
are not.
•
m
Let us analyze the situation!
A man who buys a piano for $8o, or $90, or $100, wholesale, and sells it for $300 is, of course, rob-
bing the purchaser.
That's admitted, but usually he sells the piano on the "nothing-down-dollar-a-week" plan.
After the customer has paid a number of instalments he learns that he has agreed to pay a ridicu-
lously large price for a cheap piano, and that he can buy from another dealer just as good a piano at much
less, and that there is no sense in continuing to make monthly payments forever.
Where do the dealer's assets go in such cases?
He had figured a big profit on the face value of his cheap piano paper, when lo! the whole trade
edifice has crumbled.
.
It would not have crumbled—it would have remained firm and unshaken if the pianos which he had
sold had been instruments of reputation—instruments of standing. In other words, standard products.
. The values would have been stable and his instalment paper would have been subject to no violent
depreciation; but a lot of men are building houses of cards, and down they will go.
The name standard and the price standard are the sheet anchors of the. piano industry, and this.truth
cannot be too firmly impressed upon the selling forces of this trade during the New Year*
Stand for the pianos of reputation and class—and stand for the price standard and methods which
Uplift and do not pull down.
Then you will be on a solid foundation.