Music Trade Review

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THE
MUJIC TI(ADE
VOL. LXII. No. 12 Published Every Saturday by Estate of Edward Lyman Bill at 373 Fourth Ave., New York, Mar. 18, 1916
SIII
SO?P5 I
Quality Sales and Quality Pianos.
EALERS and salesmen alike should give especial consideration these days to the terms at
which pianos and players are sold at retail. Not in years was the time more propitious
for a drive against low prices than now. The times are good, money is abundant, and
more is being spent for luxuries than in many years. It only needs backbone and determi-
nation on the part of the salesman to get the largest amount of cash possible on his sales.
This is not only true as pertaining to high grade pianos, but pianos of every grade. The terms
on which pianos are now sold by many houses are absolutely ridiculous. There is a spineless policy
in this respect that makes the purchaser and not the salesman the arbiter in the matter of sales terms.
Unless salesmen determine to ask and get a large amount of cash on their initial sales they will
not get it. With judicious handling a customer can be made to pay a goodly sum down and larger
terms per month than is now the custom.
No one can be classed as a successful salesman unless he is able to show a decided improvement
in the quality of his sales, for more money can be had if the effort is made. What competitors are
doing should not worry the salesman who has a definite policy to adhere to—a policy that means the
closing of quality sales. And by quality sales we do not mean the selling alone of high grade pianos,
but rather their disposal on right terms.
The salesman should also keep in mind the psychological aspect of the subject, namely, that a
purchaser is rather flattered to be considered a man of means, and that the appeal in the matter of
higher terms is oftentimes received as a compliment which works out profitably.
Dealers and salesmen to-day are facing the question of higher prices due to the increased cost
of every article that enters into the manufacture of a piano. The importance of this question has been
set forth frequently in The Review during the past few months. The increased cost of pianos must
be passed along to the purchasing public, for the dealer or the manufacturer cannot afford to ignore
the conditions which exist in the primary markets, where supplies of all kinds have reached
enormous figures.
And here is to be found a very potent argument for the dealer as far as securing higher prices
in the matter of retail instalment sales is concerned, for there are few departments of a piano business
which will eat up profits as rapidly as that devoted to instalments, especially when sales are made
on terms that eventually can only mean a loss to the house.
It is always preferable to have a scale of prices and stick to them than to have a vacillating policy
and transact business on lines that do not guarantee a safe margin of profit. The man who depends
on cutting prices as a means to sell pianos admits that he is a poor salesman. He should build his argu-
ments on a sound fundamental basis of quality values, show wherein his instruments are desirable,
rather than seek to win business by price-cutting.
Pianos and player-pianos should be sold at the right price, and always on terms that will insure
a profit to those putting them out, whether it be a clean-cut sale or an instalment transaction, It is,
an axiom worth considering that no business is good business unless it pays a profit.
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