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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
VOL. LXVI. No. 5
Published
Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Feb. 2, 1918
Single Copies 19 Cento
*2.00 Per Yew
Let the Customer Fix the Terms
I
N the business as in the political world this is an era of revolutionary happenings. With war conditions
confronting us there is evident a spirit of self-examination which is having a beneficial effect in all channels
of business. Everyday methods in retail and wholesale fields are being analyzed, the weak points
eliminated and such reforms inaugurated as will be of benefit to the industry. In discussing merchan-
dising methods it is pertinent to consider the question of advertising terms at which pianos and players are
sold, and it must be admitted that in this special field there exist some really big opportunities for reform
and betterment.
For instance, if a dealer advertises that pianos and player-pianos can be purchased at from $5 to $10
down and a similar amount monthly, the prospect will come into the store with the idea fixed in his mind
that those are the terms he is expected to pay, whether the value of the instrument is $200 or $600. To
demand betters terms after such an advertisement means to endanger the sale.
If, on the other hand, the dealer advertises that favorable terms will be made, or that the customer's
own terms will be accepted, if within reason, the prospect will come into the store to inspect and probably
purchase the instrument as his first thought, and to arrange the terms and conditions of payment as a secondary
consideration.
Leaving the question of terms to the customer is not so foolish as it might appear at first glance.
Experience has proved that with the question of payment left entirely to the customer, he will suggest terms
generally much more favorable than the average salesman would ask, and, practically without exception, the
terms suggested will be considerably above the minimum terms fixed by the house.
Piano merchants in all sections of the country are beginning to realize this bit of psychology, and the
advertising of fixed terms is being eliminated to a surprising degree. New concerns are seeing the light each
day, and are joining the ranks of those who leave the question of terms fully open for discussion after the
sale has been made.
The advertising of terms, if done honestly, is not in any sense unethical, but it is believed by many piano
men of experience to have a tendency to cut down the percentage of cash business, and to interfere materially
with efforts to shorten retail credits. Then again, it is a question whether an offer of a piano at $5 down
and $5 a month is any more liable to move the prospect to buy than is the printed offer to permit the customer
himself to fix his own terms.
The New York Piano Merchants' Association, practically since its inception, has been working to persuade
its members to discontinue the advertising of terms, with the result that today very few concerns in the local
trade follow the practice. To discontinue the advertising of terms does not call for any material sacrifice or
any radical change in selling policies. It is simply a change in phraseology that works for the benefit of the
piano merchant, rather than against him. It is a significant fact that those who have once begun to advertise
that terms can be made to suit the customer never go back to the practice of featuring fixed terms in their
advertising.
The purchaser of a piano at, say, $400, if he has any knowledge of business at all, would not voluntarily
assume that he could arrange terms of $10 or $15 down and similar amounts monthly. He would realize
the amount of money involved and suggest terms in keeping with that amount. Such a man will only demand
minimum terms when he is educated, through advertising, to expect them, and the piano merchant himself,
the man most vitally interested, is frequently doing the educating that is working directly against his own
pocketbook by advertising low terms in such a manner that the prospect is given erroneous and unbusinesslike
ideas concerning the piano trade and the methods employed by it in its sales end. Letting the customer fix the
terms is merely good business procedure.