Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
APRIL 12,
1919
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
WHY GUT PRICES ON MUSIC ROLLS?
(Continued from page 3)
It is a fact recognized by talking machine dealers that the real profits and real future of their business
lie not in the simple sale of the machine, but in the sales of records that follow, and the same rule unquestionably
should hold good to a large measure in the matter of music rolls. That there is money in the handling of rolls
is not a subject for doubt, because more than one member of the trade has developed a most substantial and
profitable business by handling music rolls exclusively, and other houses have established and maintained
substantial departments—-profitable factors in the business—devoted to the music roll business alone, with a
competent manager in charge and a trained sales staff.
The trouble appears to be that a great many piano men have allowed the player-piano sale at $500, $600
or $700 to blind them to the possibility of follow-up profits on roll sales at a dollar each. Any leisure time
they may have they give to the consideration of plans for building up the player-piano business without
spending some of that time in studying the music roll situation. Under existing conditions, with the majority of
player-piano owners trained under wartime conditions to pay in the neighborhood of $1 for word rolls, the
piano retailer has an opportunity to establish a department in his business that operates almost automatically—
for the player owners must have rolls—and if properly pushed is capable of being developed into a big thing.
Accurate statistics are unfortunately not available, but experience indicates that the new player owner who
has not at least 100 rolls in his library at the end of the first year and who does not add four or five rolls a month
to that library is in the minority. Multiplying those figures by the number of players sold each year will give
the retailer some idea of the roll business that should come to him naturally and without great solicitation. Add
to that the business that he can take away from competitors by aggressive methods, and the total is something
worth considering.
It is only by observing established prices in retailing rolls—by realizing the full profit under such prices,
and conducting his roll department as a business proposition—that the retailer can expect to make good on the
venture. He is practically compelled to handle some rolls if he sells player-pianos. The big question is whether
he is going to handle them at a loss and detract from his player-piano sales profits, or whether he is going
to welcome the change in the roll situation as a means for added income.
Certainly the majority of the manufacturers are doing their best to help the dealer increase his roll business.
They supply him with showcards, printed lists, numerous sales helps; they advertise in national magazines for
his benefit; they keep in touch with musical affairs so that they may offer him in roll form only such numbers
as may be expected to prove salable, and in other ways they endeavor to keep the business on a high level.
The price cutter is undoing all this work which the retail dealer is paying for indirectly when he buys his rolls,
and is in addition proving a handicap locally. It is time he was discouraged and made to see the light, and
it is probable that steps will be taken to that end.
In referring to the price cutter we refer directly to the man who continually slashes prices, who, by selling
at cost, or under, some popular rolls, serves to undermine public confidence in the fairness of prices asked for
other rolls in the same or earlier lists. When the time comes to clean up slow moving stock—stock that threatens
to become passe—then the well advertised sale, as in the case of the sale of used pianos, will not only clean the
shelves of dead stock, but arouse fresh interest in the new rolls. In such a case the sale is an event, but a
continuous price-cutting campaign is simply a destroyer of both confidence and profit.
pictures of British industries, and under whose management exhibi-
tions were given last year under the auspices of the British Cham-
bers of Commerce in self-governing dominions and in allied coun-
tries. This management, moreover, arranged last year for a world
tour of some of the principal cities in Western Europe, North and
South America, Canada, India, South Africa, Egypt, Australia and
New Zealand.
The Department of Trade and Commerce in Canada has also
been using motion pictures on a large scale, spending $40,000 for
this purpose since February 6 last, and so successful have been
the results that a further appropriation has been made to extend
this work.
Now that we are giving so much attention to the development
of foreign trade there is no question but that this form of educa-
tional propaganda should prove a most effective means of making
the peoples of the world acquainted with American manufactures
and their superiority. The making of a piano, or player, for in-
stance, from the raw material to the completed instrument, makes a
STRAUCH
fascinating story when properly presented, and where utilized in
connection with a good demonstrator an unanswerable argument can
be presented bearing on the superiority of the American musical in-
struments, and good reason shown why they are cheap at any price
as compared with the creations of other nations.
T
JIE following, which will be found food for thought, is clipped
from the Bulletin of the Grand Rapids Association of Credit
Men : "'Those who use dirty tools secretly despise them. Men who
carry out^shady instructions immediately pave the way to their own
dismissal. The very employers who profit through crooked under-
lings thereafter resent their presence in the organization. Who-
ever prostitutes his principles for hire is logically held ready to
seize the first favorable opportunity to advance himself by theft
or treachery. Nobody can strengthen his position by weakness. Con-
scientiously they do not possess and pay sincere respect to the force
of character which refuses to read into the obligations of employ-
ment submission to improper commands."
PIANO
ACTION
= = = = =
THE
ACTION OF
QUALITY and MERIT
STRAUCH BROS., Inc.
20-30 Tenth Avenue
New York