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THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
3ALL TOWER.
'T'^HE progressive tendencies shown by the Germans in the field
-L
of commerce makes their doings of interest to business men
in all parts of the world. In the manufacture and marketing of
pianos, for instance, they have reached a high plane. Those of the
American manufacturers who have even dabbled in the export field
in South America or other parts of the world can testify to the
thoroughness of German methods in getting the business and hold-
ing it, despite the fact that we have reason to believe that their
product does not equal or excel our own.
« * *
NE of the latest moves of the Association of German Piano
Manufacturers is the endeavor to regulate the retail prices
of pianos in order to bring them down to a uniform basis. While
it was considered impractical to adopt a set retail price of certain
lines of pianos it was decided that dealers should be allowed a dis-
count not to exceed 35 or 40 per cent., even including prizes for
extra business. The manufacturers also plan to hold the dealers
to an agreement to allow no more than 5 per cent, to the purchaser
and 10 per cent, to the middleman on a cash sale. They believe
that this plan will do away with a great deal of the price cutting
now prevalent and prevent many dealers from getting into financial
trouble through cutting profits to a dangerous point.
•I *6 «t
EALIZING the importance of training expert piano makers
for the future,' the German Piano Manufacturers Associa-
tion recently adopted a resolution recommending that a maximum
number of apprentices be trained in the various factories and that
a report of the number of apprentices trained in each factory and
in what lines be submitted to the association each year.
O
R
H
I
n 11
N view of present day developments in the piano trade in this
country it might be well for the piano men to observe the
actions of our Teutonic friends. Regulating the dealer's profit by
contract may not be democratic, but it would reduce the number of
failures in the trade, and, what is more important, materially cut
down the renewals demanded upon dealers' notes. The question
as to who will carry on the manufacture of pianos when the present
generation has pased away is also a pertinent one. Unless things
change the superintendent of the future, the man who understands
the minute details of the work in every department, will be a very
scarce man.
tising. Investigation is the only thing necessary to establish the
power of advertising to create demand for reliable articles. It is
its own defense. It needs no champions. The political managers
have seen this. More business •men are seeing it every year. Some
will hold back year after year and finally give in. Advertising is
only well begun. Only the first steps have been taken. Its future
is too big for words.
*?
* •?
R
ATHER a funny story is going the rounds of the trade. One
of the representatives of the most pronounced exponent of
vicious and decadent journalism was in the office of a business man
recently, and in a burst of confidence said: "The old man has
gone daft on Bill and has given the staff positive orders to abuse
him and try to down him whenever we can." The manufacturer
replied by saying: "It is funny how your 'downing' process works
out. IWll publishes from sixty to eighty pages of splendidly se-
lected news weekly. You have gotten down to about twenty of
rant and abuse. If you keep on with this 'downing' process it is
pretty certain that you will be snuffed out of sight.' 1 The repre-
sentative shook his head sadly and said: "I admit all you say, but
if you have a chief who is gone clean daft with jealousy and whose
mind isn't any bigger than a pinhead, what are you going to do?"
The manufacturer said: "I'll tell you what I would do, rather than
to take that kind of dictation from a decadent chief I would break
stones on the street for br'ead and cheese, and it now stands you are
as low as your chief, and he is in the sub-cellar." Exit—repre-
sentative—with head down wondering why the world had grown
so sad and drear.
THE DANGERS TOWARDS WHICH WE ARE DRIFTING.
(Continued from page J . )
names, but unless there be honest work back of the name reputa-
tion—unless there be vigor, energy and intelligence placed upon
the artistic end of the business, then good-bye to the piano trade of
the future.
Dealers should recollect that while they arc doing a certain
amount of work within a restricted territory the men who are
directing" the policies of the great companies are doing national
work for them all the while—they are standing back of them and
all of their work and are helping them in many ways which does
not seem apparent at a superficial glance.
. •
H *t • ?
One of the dealers whose agencies for the leading pianos years
EAR after year lines of goods which it was formerly believed
ago
were
cut off, told us recently that he was sick and tired of his
could not be sold through advertising have found their way
plans—that
he had worked sensational methods to the end and
into advertising columns, and have stayed there, because it has paid
now
he
saw
that for the past five years he had been working along
to advertise them. The article which has once been thoroughly
lines which, if continued, meant his business ruin.
advertised and then has disappeared is the exception, not the rule.
He frankly admitted that he had no future on the flamboyant
Fifty years ago advertising was comparatively unimportant as a
lines and that the great names after all were the bulwark of the
factor in the country's industry. To-day it is not too much to say
entire trade. Plenty of others will realize this later on and the
that advertising, properly administered, is by far the greatest single
great men of the industry will see that systematic careful methods
factor in the promotion of many of our greatest enterprises. Do
are used in the exploitation of certain makes of instruments which
not be deceived. You cannot take a second-rate article, spend
they have.
$100,000 in advertising it, and make a fortune. At least, it is not a
One house particularly which we have in mind advertises at
wise thing to try. Advertising is a force of such power that it has
certain periods to reach a class of trade which would be interested
even made fortunes for proprietors of second-rate articles, but re-
in low-priced instruments, but its selling force is instructed in the
strictions, destined to become more stringent than at present, arc
most positive terms to never lose sight of the fact that high grade
stamping out the exploitation through advertisements of unreliable
instruments must be talked with the same persistence and the same
goods. If a manufacturer of a superior article will place a rea-
energy as the low-priced.
sonable sum of money each year in advertising, placing his ex-
In other words, it exploits various types of instruments at
penditures in the hands of a competent man or men, using general
regular times, but the chief of the business is a man of keen intelli-
or trade publications of established reputation, which reaches both
consumer and dealer of the desired class, and keep steadily ham-
gence and he knows full well the advantage to him of instruments
mering away, he is certain to win. If he does not do so, the trouble
of national reputation.
is either with the goods he makes or with the men who handle his
His business standing is fine in his local community, but he
advertising. The principle of advertising has been tried, and it is realizes that without the great names he would be down to precisely
true beyond all shadow of doubt. It pays. Look back 25 years
the level of the furniture store if he did not keep alive'the musical
and trace the growth up to the present. Note the great enterprises
atmosphere which is aided and encouraged by the great names
which have started small and have become great through adver-
and the forces behind them!
Y