Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MEW
THE
VOL. LIX. N o . 8
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave M New York, Aug. 22, 1914
Cleaner Methods
SING
$2 E OO CO P P ER S VE 0 AR ENTS
Merchandisin
F we hark back to the days of the Oriental bazaars, merchandising was conducted along primi-
tive lines, by haggling of prices, clever and sharp practices indulged in by those who had the
wares to sell. Since those early days merchandising has gradually evolved from crude
conditions, until to-day the old plan which was suited to provincial life and the days of the
pushcart does not conform with our modern business methods.
In the old way trickery and deceit entered largely into selling plans of all kinds, hence the
growth of business itself was defeated by dishonest methods which were incapable of real business
growth.
Great industrial institutions could not have grown out of those early conditions, but the world
had to be educated, and it has been, like everything else, a long and slow process; but no one can
deny that distinct progress has been made, and that within the past ten years marvelous steps have
been taken which makes merchandising in all lines cleaner and better.
We see these conditions reflected in the publicity world, because there are papers—plenty of
them—who will not accept questionable advertising, or advertising in which there is an element
of doubt as to the ability of the advertiser to live up to the statements made in his announcement.
In other words, the advertising pages of the great publicity mediums reflect honesty in merchan-
dising in a greater degree than ever before; hence it means, as a natural sequence, that out of these
conditions there should come price standardization.
Now, unless there be fixed prices, what is the real object of manufacturing institutions spend-
ing millions of dollars to create a trade-mark value in the homes of purchasers? If advertised
articles can be cut and slashed according to the whims of the price cutters, then why advertise to
reach the public, because everyone knows that price-cutting has no other effect than the lowering
of the standard of values, and surely the individual or corporation whose money is invested in a manu-
facturing enterprise has the right to say what the public should pay for their articles. Surely the
public will not pay more than the article is worth and continue to purchase it.
The manufacturers' rights should be respected, and when one price is established generally
by the manufacturers the unscrupulous merchant will be forced to abandon his plan of substitut-
ing cheap and inferior articles for the standard article. In this way the producer will secure in a
larger degree his rights as a maker, and the retail purchaser will have a guarantee of protection, in
so far as the price and quality is concerned, and the whole system of bartering and haggling, which
almost amounts to a battle of wits, will be done away with.
The Supreme Court, by a hardly understandable decision, has stated that the maker of a
nationalized product has not the right to say how much the retailer shall ask the public for it,
and yet the Government compels the railways to maintain one price for all; and would not this
provision prevent the manufacturer of trade-marked articles from doing the same thing which the
Government exacts from the railroads.
Is it not the slashing of prices that has been one of the serious charges against the great trusts,
because by slaughtering prices they have also cut off the heads of the small dealers; and does not
the same thing work out in the commercial world?
With a standard trade-marked article the small dealer can meet in successful competition the
I
(Continued on page 5.)