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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Meeting Changing Retail Conditions.
LEADING article of more than ordinary interest which ad-
A
mirably sets forth the changing conditions in the retail
department of the music trade, as well as other industries, is that
which appeared recently in Good Storekeeping under the
caption "Follow the Gleam." We print it, in part, as worthy the
earnest consideration of those who desire to keep in touch with
developments. It reads as follows:
We who have been in business life for two decades or more
know that new methods, new obstacles and new facilities have stolen
upon us almost unawares. And as we look back to the way busi-
ness was done in the eighties, and later, we feel as one who looks
upon the shifting scenes of a stage transformation.
Interesting as all this may be few of us can afford to philoso-
phize upon it as mere spectators. We are actors in the drama.
The changes concern us; they affect our fortunes and our careers.
We cannot set back our environments to where they were—we must
adapt ourselves to them. Else, by the law which reigns in com-
merce as in nature, we succumb. We must "follow the gleam."
We must face and analyze the new forces and work with them.
The retail merchant has found himself in a changed world,
more thr.n most men. In place of a host of snail manufacturers
competing for his business, he finds one or a very few large com-
panies, much less yielding to his demands. Chain stores overrun
the lan.d. The catalogue houses have flourished and ship their
goods into his town undsr his very nose to his best customers. The
parcel post is an actuality. More subtly, the attitude of customers
has changed in various ways.
The dealer can no longer ignore the new era. It has become
a matter of urgency, if he is to continue a retail business, that he
adapt himself to irodern conditions. If they present difficulties,
still he must from them derive means to master the difficulties. He
must follow the gleam, the dancing, moving, receding light that
is to get him safely out of the labyrinth.
Fortunately, these twenty years have seen the rise of an ally
of the truly progressive merchant, with the help of which he may
go a long way toward meeting the competition of chain stores and
mail order houses. National advertising is most emphatically the
merchant's friend for all such advertising (aside from the com-
paratively small advertising of the catalogue houses) constantly
and insistently calls upon-the public to "ask your dealer." National
advertisers want the retail store to remain. They believe in dis-
tribution through local merchants. They know that, with rea-
sonable co-operation from retailers, no distribution is so effective
as that through the old channels of the jobber and the local store.
Does the merchant stop to think that the goods whose com-
petition he most dreads—mail order goods—are generally not half
so popular and well known as nationally advertised goods are?
Does he notice that the private brands of the chain stores constantly
fight the public's demand for famous trade-marked products? Does
he even realize how small and weak all catalogue houses combined
are in comparison with the total number of companies which adver-
tise nationally? The entire annual business of the mail order
houses, in gross, is less than the advertising expenditure of the great
national makers of trade-marked goods!
To follow the gleam—the light of a policy based on things as
they are, not as they were and never will be again—the retail mer-
chant has but to join hands heartily with national advertisers, cash
in on the immense demand they create, duplicate some of their
national advertising by local advertising—and he will find that the
cheaper distribution resulting will enable them to take increasingly
good care of him and put him where he will laugh at the competi-
tion of syndicated businesses.
Banner Year In Our Foreign Trade.
E
LSEWHERE in The Review appears the completed report of
the foreign trade of the United States for the fiscal year
ending with June. It makes a remarkable showing and tells the
story of a banner year in foreign trade. As will be noted, the fig-
ures show an increase of $159,700,000 in imports and $261,500,000
in exports over those of the previous year, which had the highest
record up to that time. The total of foreign trade on both sides
of the account was $4,275,000,000, which was greater than ever
before by $421,000,000. The excess of exports over imports was
$652,900,000, which had been exceeded only in the year ending
June, 1908, when imports had been depressed and exports stimu-
lated by the effect of the panic of 1907.
One of the significant aspects of this account is to be found in
the relatively large increase in exports of manufactured goods, the
value of which was $1,507,401,942 out of a total for all exports of
$2,465,000,000, or nearly five-eighths of the whole. Of these $778,-
008,349 are classed as "manufactures ready for consumption," an
increase of nearly $108,000,000 over the previous year. Manufac-
tures for further use in manufacturing show an increase of nearly
$61,000,000. These include various forms of metal, as ingots of
copper, billets of steel, etc. In manufactures of foodstuffs the in-
crease was small, little more than $1,500,000 in value, the total in
the latest year being $320,401,482.
• Another interesting aspect of our foreign trade lies in the fact
that considerable more than half of it is still with European coun-
tries. A good deal more than one-half of our exports went there
and nearly one-half of the imports came from there. The United
Kingdom is still our best customer, taking $597,000,000 of our ex-
ports and supplying over $295,000,000 of our imports. The large
difference between these items is due to the extent to which Eng-
land imports raw materials, especially cotton and food products,
chiefly grain and meat. Our nearest neighbor, Canada, is the next
best customer, taking $415,000,000 of our exports, while sending
us only $120,000,000 of her products. In this case the excess of
exports was made up largely of manufactured goods, though our
cotton supply accounts for a considerable part. Asia is the only
"grand division" which shows a falling off in trade with the United
States.
The figures bearing on the exports and imports of musical
instruments, which appeared in these columns last week, tell a story
of healthy-conditions—-there being a very substantial increase in,
both export and import trade, as compared with the last fiscal year.',
Municipal Music a Profitable Investment.
P to the present time the general public has held a well-founded
idea that municipal music, in whatever form, was simply a
very pleasant form of philonthropy, a means of giving the public
a certain amount of enjoyment at the expense of the taxpayers and
without any chance of real returns for the investment except in the
matter of gratified music lovers and officials self-satisfied with their
generosity. These ideas regarding the philanthropic nature of
municipal music, however, have been upset in part through the ex-
perience of Portland, Me., in connection with the municipal pipe
organ in that city.
The organ has only been in use for a single season, but during
U
Jthat time the audiences have totaled 150,000 and with the receipts
already in sight for a series of daily summer recitals now being
given, the total earnings of the organ for the season will exceed
$10,000. The concerts and recitals are under the direction of Will
C. MacFarlane, the municipal organist, formerly of New York, and
the success of the affair is a distinct tribute to the lovers of organ
music in Portland.
The fact that a municipal organ, with concerts properly con-
ducted, can be turned into an income producing investment for the
city as well as a boon to music lovers, should encourage the installa-
tion of municipal organs in public auditoriums throughout the coun-
try—a custom now widely prevalent in Great Britain and growing
in favor here.
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