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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
THE URBAN RETAIL PIANO MERCHANT
By MARSHALL BREEDEN, Western Representative, Jesse French & Sons Piano Co.
In the first of these articles I spoke of the
provincial piano dealer, the man who lives in a
community of less than 4,000 people and derives
his business from the farmers in the surround-
ing country. Then, secondly, in the ascendingr
scale of increasing population comes the urban
dealer.
The term "urban" as herein used is meant
to signify a community of from ten to twenty
thousand. Such urban communities are sup-
posedly capable of sustaining three or four
legitimate piano houses, each with its own or-
ganization and identity.
As the population of the business center itself
increases and the surrounding country popula-
tion is more easily reached the piano "dealer"
becomes more of a "merchant," and conse-
quently more important in the distributing scale.
Thus the change.
The urban piano dealer gets more favorable
ratings in the commercial agency reports, owing
to the actual investment required to conduct
a business of greater magnitude.
He establishes a regular showroom or store,
usually located on a prominent local business
street, where he can display his wares to good
advantage and where he can also carry a siz-
able stock of accessories, such as sheet music,
player rolls, phonographs and records.
Besides himself—usually the titular head of
the business—he employs others to help, men
for the outside soliciting work, and young ladies
to sell the accessories, with himself usually clos-
ing most of the piano sales.
Comes also advertising, for the average urban
community supports a daily newspaper or even
two, and in these the urban dealer inserts dis-
play announcements occasionally, and want ad
notices frequently. Some also resort to the
sales-letter with which to secure prospects, not
omitting the telephone and the like, each neces-
sary to overcome the local direct competition
and to enable him to keep in the front with
his merchandise.
He sells his instruments to the general public
and not alone his personal acquaintances.
The Danger Point
This matter of selling individuals and not
friends immediately places him in the category
of a genuine merchant as distinguished from
the provincial dealer who personally knows his
trade.
In short, then, the dealer in a city begins
to be very much like the dealer in a large city,
but on a smaller scale. His problems are about
the same: financing, competition, advertising,
store management. He has the same problems,
but he lacks the accumulated business acumen
of the big city dealer with which to solve those
problems. He depends almost entirely upon his
own sagacity, whereas the big dealer employs
experts to help him.
Therein lies the danger for the urban dealer,
who is, perhaps, incli.ned only half to solve his
pioblems—with disastrous results.
Usually Desirable
To the piano manufacturers the urban dealer
is usually very desirable. They want his busi-
ness and some of them make a real effort to
get it, also, and likewise some of them make a
very slipshod effort, resulting, of course, in ex-
pense with no profit.
Factories should try to get business from the
urban dealer. It will certainly pay them to
make a sincere effort, because this urban busi-
ness man has not only a thriving community of
several thousand possible customers, but he has
a more or less closely populated outlying ter-
ritory as well.
His Enemies
Upon the urban dealer fall the blows of the
provincial dealer's competition, and the shock
troops of the city dealer range his territory
seeking what they can garnish for his side.
The surrounding towns, of a thousand or so,
that always flank the city are the natural habitat
of the provincial dealer, and thus the urban
dealer is placed between two styles of competi-
tion, the one offering perhaps better terms for
the same instrument, the other offering personal
service and friendship as well as almost equal
terms and instruments. The city always has a
lure—people like to buy from the big store, and
so compel their own home town dealers to hump
themselves mightily to meet that "Lure of the
City."
How Can the Factory Help?
How can the "factory help the urban dealers
overcome this competition and drive their enemies
into their own legitimate fields? That is a ques-
tion which cannot be fully answered, but here
are some offerings:
My urban friends here in the West tell me
that they can be helped in two major ways—
ways that are in themselves simple and not new.
1. By establishing a wholesale center from
which the urban dealers can get pianos quicker
and at less immediate outlay for freight charges,
and at the same time be allowed to make the
long margin of profit and permitted the courtesy
of extended payments by note or trade ac-
ceptance.
2. By helping them finance their business. In
short, by carrying their customer paper for them.
3. And there is a third one—more difficult
than the other two. That is to get real, sure-
enough, competent salesmen for them.
Speaking to the above, it appears that sugges-
tion number one is wholly and entirely justifiable
and right. Its adoption by a piano factory would
result in greatly augmented sales on the Pacific
Coast and would not necessarily involve a great
outlay of stock or money in the doing.
There is a way—a practical-and economical
AMERICAN PIANO SUPPLY COMPANY
FELTS
CLOTHS
PUNCHINGS
HINGES
CASTERS
HAMMERS
MUSIC WIRE
TUNING PINS
PLAYER PARTS
A Full Line oi Materials for Pianos anc 1 Organs
Wken in need of supplies
communicate with us
110-112 EAST 13th STREET
-
-
-
-
NEW YORK
JANUARY 1, 1921
way of doing this—it is simple, sure and con-
servative. What is that? Well, that is my
secret!
True enough, if an urban dealer wishes to
he can secure various standard instruments on
consignment from certain city stores, or from
some factories, or he can even buy from the same
source. In both of these cases, however, he loses,
no matter how you argue otherwise, because his
percentage of profits is necessarily much smaller
when he does business through such an interme-
diary. Consequently, the urban dealer, of the de-
sirable sort, resorts to either of these methods
only when he absolutely has to and never through
choice.
The solution, then, is not here. But as I
intimated, there is a simple solution. Remember
Columbus and the upstanding egg.
The second proposal is more difficult to an-
swer. Some factories do carry customer paper,
but the majority do not, and rightly so, for no
matter how loud your urban dealers may ask
for this accommodation and service the good
ones don't actually need or require it and are
therefore asking only to hear themselves talk.
The matter of competent employes is, of
course, vital in every business in the land, and
no more vital to the urban than to the city
dealer. It is an age-old problem to which there
can be no answer, except that lucky is the
dealer who has a producing staff. He should
cherish that staff even as he cherishes his
profits, for they are identical.
Advertising
The piano which is nationally advertised by
the factory does not find special urban favor
because of the national advertising. For some
reason best known to themselves the urban
dealers with whom I have talked on the sub-
ject say that they don't care so much whether
a piano is advertised in the national fiction maga-
zines or not. They actually prefer the trade
journal advertising, and for a very good rea-
son. Any instrument will do for them, just so
long as it is mechanically up to their standards
and has a good reputation among the trade.
Ponder that!
"A good reputation among the' trade."
That is very important. Its importance is
second to no other thing, because an instrument
with a good, clean reputation among the mem-
bers of the piano selling profession will always
be a sales leader with your urban dealer. It
must be, for no competitor who is in any point
honest can, or will, knock an instrument offered
by another dealer, if that instrument enjoys a
real reputation for reliability among the trade.
So the competitors can only extol the merits of
their own instrument, saying at the same time
nothing but good about the other.
But take an instrument not liked by the trade
(and there are some excellent ones which for
some reason or other the Western dealers will
not even consider) and your competitor just nat-
urally raises the deuce out of it, so that sales are
very hard to make.
Gold and Platinum
If the genuine provincial dealer is pure gold,
then assuredly the genuine urban dealer is
platinum, which is more valuable than gold, and
he is more valuable because as a class he has
a larger buying power, which, after all else is
said and done, is what the factory wants.
But valuable as platinum is, gold also is valu-
able, and both will stand considerable of the
alloy of genuine co-operation—perfect faith.
FIRE DOESN'T STOP BUSINESS
MONROE, LA. F December 27.—E. Kaliski, president
of the Kaliski Music Co., Ltd., of this city,
informs The Review regarding the recent fire
his company suffered, as follows: "We are
pleased to advise that we are continuing bus-
iness since our fire and are getting things in
shape."
The need for great men in the world was
never as persistent as now; everyone has an
equal chance to fill this need.