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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
4
REVIEW
(Registered in the U. S. Patent Office)
PUBLISHED BY EDWARD LYMAN BILL, Inc.
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Executive and Reportorial Stati
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NEW YORK, MARCH 10, 1923
MARCH 10,
1923
ufacturer of a trade-marked or branded article may, for the purpose
of protecting his good will, mark his product with an established
uniform retail price, and, by contract with his vendee, prescribe
uniform prices and matters of settlement.
This is the latest measure designed to permit retail price main-
tenance on trade-marked articles. It has the endorsement of the
American Fair Trade League and other commercial organizations.
The trouble has been that for several years past there has been
introduced at practically every session of Congress some measure,
generally similar to the original Stephens bill, designed to legalize
the maintenance of resale prices on trade-marked articles. Each
time such a bill comes up for consideration various commercial
bodies, including the piano and talking machine associations, endorse
the bill strongly and there the matter rests.
If this and other industries really desire a measure legalizing
price maintenance, something will have to be done beyond simply
endorsing the idea. The Chamber's letter to the House Committee
is a move in the right direction, but it should not be the final one.
If the principle is worth fighting for, members of the trade as indi-
viduals should impress their Senators and Congressional representa-
tives with the desirability of the measure and the fact that it
should pass.
The arguments of this policy's opponents are chiefly to the
effect that price maintenance leads to monopoly and is a burden on
the public. These have been shot to pieces on numerous occasions,
for it has been proven that price maintenance under proper regula-
tion really protects the public by preventing price-cutters from using
reductions on nationally known trade-marked articles as a bait to
draw customers to the store where they may be influenced to buy
articles of inferior quality at excessive prices. It is significant that
most of the troubles of the talking machine trade came after the
courts had placed the ban on price maintenance.
CLEAN PIANO-SELLING METHODS DO PAY
No. 10
piano merchant with a store in the foreign
A SUCCESSFUL
quarter of one of the large Western cities was criticized for
THE AUTO MAN AND THE "TRADE-IN"
ANY members of the music industry are inclined to emphasize
the similarity of the problems of the automobile dealer and
of the piano merchant generally, with special emphasis upon the
clever manner in which the automobile man handles those problems
as compared with his piano-selling brother.
In view, therefore, of the attention given to the used-piano
problem in the trade and the efforts being made to develop a depre-
ciation schedule that will serve to check excessive allowances, the
fact that automobile men are seriously engaged in a discussion of
the used-car problem is most interesting.
The originality of the automobile men is evident in the sugges-
tion made at a recent meeting that there be established a general
clearing house for used cars to relieve the dealers of the work of
reselling them from their own showrooms; that dealers refuse to
make any allowance on used cars, but simply act as selling agents
for the customer and give him his return in cash, and that a definite
schedule of used-car resale prices be prepared for the use of dealers
and this be kept up to date by a readjustment each six months.
All these plans have been discussed and in certain instances
tried by piano men who are still searching for some plan that will
solve the used-piano problem once for all. It will be interesting,
therefore, to see how the automobile men make out in carrying out
the same idea.
Perhaps the piano men may gain some solace from the fact
that, although the average automobile depreciates greatly or wears
out entirely within a period of three or four years, the replacement
problem is already a serious one for the dealers. A piano of fair
quality will, with proper use, last two decades or more, so the used
ones are not piling up so fast as are used cars. The answer, of
course, is the fact that one automobile factory alone will turn out
this year close to four cars for every piano that can ]X)ssibly be
produced.
a number of years upon his sales and advertising methods, and
because of the fact that he featured the low-price appeal in a sensa-
tional way. In explanation the dealer maintained he had to adopt
such methods to get any real business from the class of people to
which he catered, and the explanation was in a measure accepted.
It happened, however, that this particular retailer became am-
bitious and moved to the main business center of the city, where he
established elaborate warerooms and added several new lines of
high-class pianos. The new agencies were given him under an
agreement that he would adopt high-grade methods and get away
from the sensational.
This retailer kept to his promise and went after the cream of
the trade in a way that was beyond criticism and which produced
results. The interesting feature, however, is that since changing his
methods the retailer still continues to do a surprising volume of
business in the foreign section where he was originally established.
He is selling more grands than uprights and within the first six
months after his removal his total business with the foreign popula-
tion alone exceeded that done in his former store during any similar
period.
The experience of this particular retailer is further proof of
the fact that it is possible to meet competition and build business in
the piano trade through the adoption of high-class methods. A list
of those retailers prominent in the trade to-day who have had the
same experience would prove an impressive argument to use on
those who believe that sensationalism and low-price competition
must be met along the same lines.
Vol. LXXVI
M
I
PRICE MAINTENANCE AGAIN TO THE FORE
HE Music Industries Chamber of Commerce has addressed a
T
letter to all members of the House Committee on Interstate and
Foreign Commerce urging the support of the bill introduced by
Representative Merritt of Connecticut which provides that the man-
PROPER DISPLAY FOR THE REPRODUCING PIANO
page of this issue of The Review is an article deal-
O N ing another
with the proper display of the reproducing piano in the
dealer's warerooms. This instrument is the most expensive thai
the average dealer carries and its appeal is directly to those people
who are accustomed to shopping in the highest class atmosphere.
The examples which are pictured with the article are striking in
the way in which these dealers have secured rich and harmonious
effects without subordinating the reproducing piano itself in the
background created to show it off. They are well worthy of the
attention of the dealer.