Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
A READJUSTMENT TO MEET PRESENT CONDITIONS.
(Continued from page 3.)
Why not a clean-cut national policy?
Why not concerted action?
Why should not, as I suggested last week, the National Association of Piano Merchants take
up this subject in the broadest and most comprehensive manner possible?
Such action would mean more to the piano trade than a thousand well-meaning, beautifully-
drawn resolutions. It would vitalize the trade with a new force, and it would make business
cleaner and sounder.
For twenty-five years the policy adopted toward traded-in instruments has been conducted on
lines absolutely opposed to sound business methods, and now with the advent of a new and pow-
erful force—the player-piano—conditions are being rapidly changed so that some men are going
to trade themselves out of business at the present rate, because a false policy has been pursued
regarding trade-in valuations, and that is one of the important reasons why piano merchants as
a whole have not advanced to stronger financial conditions.
I have studied in a more or less intimate manner conditions in a variety of trades, and I do
not believe it would be possible to locate in any division of trade or industry a keener, brighter
or more aggressive lot of men than we can find in the music trade, and yet many of them are
going it blindly, so to speak, on the trade-in proposition, feeling that because they are doing a bulk
business they are adding to their profits.
They have fallen heir to a trade tradition, and have been made poorer rather than richer by
the legacy.
If they would figure out accurately what it costs to do business—what the real valuations of
the trade-in pianos are to them—they would learn something vastly to their advantage.
Some business men make mistakes every day. No doubt of that, for the man who does not
make mistakes rarely ever goes ahead; but having discovered certain fundamental errors why
follow them?
Why is it necessary to continue doing business along lines which are bound to exercise a
destructive influence in the end?
Business should not be an uncertain proposition. In fact, a large element of uncertainty can
be quickly eliminated from it; and when we once understand the working principle of things, uncer-
tainty is removed and the rest is mere detail.
Every piano and every player-piano should be sold on terms which insure the merchant rea-
sonable and fair profits.
They can be; and the trouble right now is that many piano merchants have not recognized the
new force—the player-piano—and its effect upon the future of their business.
It is the middle-of-the-road proposition. Its onward move will be
accelerated with the passing of each month, and in order to take the
fullest advantage of this new and powerful force, the greatest care
should be exercised in making trade allowances on straight pianos.
Let us adapt our business policies to conform with the times in
which we live.
Eliminating the Chronic Piano Dead Beat
r
\ ' H E piano merchants of Detroit, in company with merchants in
JL
other lines in that city, have just won a decisive victory
against the chronic dead beat in that city by carrying the question
of validity of the recent "moving" ordinance to the Supreme Court
of the State and having it upheld.
The case in Detroit should encourage merchants and trades-
men in other States, especially those doing an instalment business,
to endeavor to have similar ordinances enacted for their own pro-
tection. The "moving" ordinance, as it is called, places no burden
on any honest man, for it simply requires that all licensed movers
file daily with the police a record of the work done by them, the
names of those who have moved, together with the old and the new
addresses. When a debtor moves without notice the creditor
merely goes to the police headquarters and from the records of
the movers learns the new address, for even though the debtor
change his name for convenience, the giving of the two addresses
in the records discloses the fact. Piano merchants, among others,
have frequently suffered severely from the purchasers moving be-
tween the visits of the collector and neglecting to leave th? new-
address. In the great majority of cases the piano is traced and
either repossessed or the customer pays up. The cost of hiring
men to trace instruments that have disappeared, added to the value
of the instruments never recovered, amounts to a figure that would
probably prove surprising to those members of the trade who arc
particularly careful in the sending out of instruments on instalment
contracts and who therefore have gotten away with a minimum of
loss in that particular.
The majority of the laws and ordinances governing instalment
sales are largely in favor of and for the protection of the purchaser,
made so owing to the fact that in certain branches of the instalment
business there have been dealers who have been as quick to take
advantage of the ignorant purchaser as some purchasers have been
"to take advantage of the dealer.
An ordinance such as that providing for the recording of all
removals, and which is calculated to protect the merchants without
injury to the interests of the general public, should meet with
general approval in all cities. Here is an opportunity for some more
association team work,