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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
REVIEW
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
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regulating and repairing of pianos and player-pianos
J
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Vol. LXXV
NEW YORK, JULY 22, 1922
No. 4
WHY PIANO COSTS ARE STATIONARY
CCORDING to reports from various sections the great majority
of piano merchants have come to the conclusion that piano prices
are now close to rock bottom, for the time being at least, and are
inclined to give that thought consideration in placing their orders for
Fall and Winter. There are still those, however, who look for further
substantial reductions, or at least pretend to, and use that as an excuse
for ordering from hand to mouth without making preparations to
meet future demands.
Taking business as a whole, however, it is quite evident that the
adjustment of wages and prices, of which so much has been written
by Government officials and others, is largely a paper adjustment and
has little basis in fact except in certain lines where prices were boosted
to the limit when the opportunity presented itself and where liquida-
tion has taken place without any great material injury to producers,
even though distributing factors have suffered in certain instances.
As has been repeated time and again, piano manufacturers with
very few exceptions did not take advantage of the opportunity to
boost their prices to the point of extortion during the war period.
In fact, many of them were unjust to themselves in passing along
only a small part of the cost increases to the dealer and to the public,
absorbing the balance themselves. While this action was fair and
square it proved a boomerang in that it has given the manufacturers
little opportunity to make extraordinary price reductions without cut-
ting into actual production costs.
In the piano trade, at least, there has been no general liquidation
of wages. There have been some few adjustments, but they have been
minor as far as they affect the cost of producing instruments. The
cost of some supplies has dropped as much as 20 per cent, but the
majority have declined but little, and in the case of lumber and also
in metals there has been an actual advance. In an effort to ease the
lumber situation the Government prosecuted the Hardwood Lumber
Dealers' Association for practices calculated to restrain trade, but
that the prosecution was of no benefit to the consumer is evidenced in
the increases that have been made in lumber prices since that time.
Then there are those who blamed high freight rates for much of the
A
JULY 22, 1922
high costs of goods as they affect the consumer, and these individuals
hailed with delight the recent order of the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission reducing freight rates on an average of 10 per cent. But, in
view of the advance made in freight rates during and since the war,
a 10 per cent cut is negligible and it has not had, nor can it have, any
material effect upon prices in general.
That the manufacturer and wholesaler have their own prob-
lems in taking care of overhead can be appreciated by the dealer, for
he himself has to face them and he will find, when he figures out what
it costs him to handle his own business to-day as compared, with 1914,
that no small proportion of high prices are directly traceable to retail
distribution.
Material price adjustments will probably come some time and
should be demanded when there is justification for the demand, but
until there is evidence of relief all along the line no one factor either
in the production or distribution of pianos can be expected to relieve
the situation by taking a direct loss. Such a policy is bad both for
the individual and the industry.
.
THE EVIL OF LONG TERMS
T
HE offering of pianos and player-pianos at nothing down and on
terms running from three to four years has long been more or
less of a common practice and has continued despite criticism launched
against that method by trade associations and individuals. The
offers have been varied at different times to give the appearance
of newness, but the limit seems to have been reached in the cases of a
prominent Pacific Coast house, which, in advertising a Summer
clearance sale of pianos, states that "the sales contract will be can-
celed and all money paid refunded within thirty days if the buyer
is not satisfied." Inasmuch as the same advertisement declares that
"no down payment is necessary and the monthly payments may be
commenced the second month," the working out of the refund offer
should prove interesting.
Summed up logically, it would seem that having paid nothing
during the first month the customer has the privilege of returning
the instrument within that period and getting a refund of the money
paid, amounting to nothing, according to the advertisement. In other
words, it is all calculated to further heighten the general impression
that pianos are cheap and can be had for almost nothing and on any
terms. There are so many ways of advertising effectively and in a
dignified way that it seems unfortunate that houses of standing must
go to extremes in their efforts to clear out stock.
The thirty-day refund proposition particularly is unnecessary,
for those who deal with houses of standing do so with the natural
assumption that should the product not prove satisfactory for any
reason they have suitable redress. To develop the refund offer into
a sales argument is calculated in the long run to shake confidence
rather than to strengthen it.
SOME ADVERTISING FACTS
P
IANO manufacturers who have been more or less perturbed over
the thought of raising a fund of a quarter of a million dollars or
;o for co-operative national advertising, calculated to benefit well
over one hundred active manufacturers and innumerable dealers,
might give thought to figures recently compiled by the Curtis Pub-
lishing Co., showing the expenditures of fifty leading advertisers in
thirty-six national magazines during 1921.
The first on the list is the Joseph Campbell Co., well-known
canners of soups and other food products, who spent a total of over
$1,300,000 during the year 1921. Second on the list comes the Victor
Talking Machine Co., with an expenditure of $1,239,693. Four
talking machine concerns in all are included in the list of fifty, with
a total advertising expenditure in the thirty-six magazines during the
year of $2,366,550. The minimum expenditure listed is $264,500, and
there is not a piano concern in the line-up.
It is not necessary at this time to make comparisons between the
advertising of talking machine manufacturers and piano manufac-
turers, but it seems well to call the attention of the trade to the fact
that there are fifty individual concerns spending more each year in
thirty-six magazines than the total appropriation asked for by those
interested in the co-operative advertising of pianos. It is also to be
borne in mind that the figures cover only one phase of advertising
and do not include the expenditures made in advertising in news-
papers, on billboards, through the medium of circulars and by other
means.