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THE
VOL. LXII. No. 19 Published Every Saturday by the Estate of Edward-Lyman Bill at-373 4th Ave., New York, May 6, 1916
The Question of
Sin
% e J o £ rs
& Cents
£
One Price
T
WO thousand years ago Plato said that nearly all the misunderstandings that ever exist would disappear
if people would but take the trouble to discover, before beginning to argue, whether each side means the
same by the terms it uses. Half the loose and inaccurate conduct in the world is just the result of loose
and inaccurate thinking, brought about by meaning one thing when one's antagonist supposes one means
something else. The piano business is filled with examples of this sort of thing, as is evident in the excessively
futile discussions that have raged and are still raging around the question of One Price.
If we would all begin arguments of this sort by deciding what we mean by the words "One Price," we would
save nearly all the misunderstanding, and have some chance of coming to agreement on a matter quite vital to our
interests.
Like many other things, nothing is easier than this to define until you come to try defining it. Then trouble
begins. Which is perhaps why scarcely any one takes the trouble to know what he means by "One Price" before
he starts in talking about it.
Still one can make an attempt. It is plain that a business which cannot give the same deal to every one is not
a business at all; it is a lottery. Every one has equal rights to a square deal and the very foundation of a square
deal would seem to be one price to all.
Now, that statement has more sound than sense when it is applied to the piano business. Complications begin
to set in from the start. Suppose you mark all your pianos and player-pianos*at one price and find that one half
of the player sales involve trade-ins. If you adopt a sliding scale based on what the customer will stand in each
case, for valuing the trade-ins, then plainly the price to each customer is not identical; simply because the cash
or deferred-payment difference is not always the same for the same instrument.
Some one will say that neither are the trade-ins of equal value. True; but all practice and experience show
that the public universally expect valuations on old pianos in excess of their real value. In perhaps one-fourth
the total number of cases a sale hangs on the valuation question. If then you stick to one price as marked, you
run the risk of either losing your sale by refusing, or losing the profit by granting an excessive valuation.
Again, what about musicians and teachers? What about terms in relation to the price? How much should
long time pay for the accommodation? Does not a discrimination here virtually abolish the one price? What
about secret understandings? And so on, to much length.
The whole trouble arises in a misunderstanding as to what is meant by one price. If it is meant that in all
cases cash and time customers are treated alike, that is one thing. If it is meant that trade-ins are valued on a
fixed scale by some standard of appraisal applying to all, then that means something else. If it means that the
listed prices absolutely stand for cash in all cases, that is still a third meaning. If it means that the nominal
prices, and even the nominal money differences in trade-in deals, are allowed strictly to stand, but that to the
favored or the hard-to-sell customer there will be given scarfs and stools and music rolls and music lessons and
a wagon load of other miscellanies, then again something else is meant. Yet the whole point is, what do we mean
when we say one price ?
.
One Price means just what it says—"One Price to All!" That means that the ticketed cash price in plain
figures is maintained on each piece of goods, whether piano, player, music roll or bench. It means that in addition
to this a computed scale of charges for time payments is maintained, so that on each ticket may be also the
terms for deferred payments; not a fresh price for time, but an addition in plain figures for the accommodation,
together with the plain statement as to what monthly terms and what down payment are required. This
"terms-scale," it is to be understood, applies proportionately to every piece of goods of whatever value, and is best
(Continued on page 5.)