Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MARCH 31,
1923
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
REVIEW
Sales Necessities in the Player Field
The Future Calls for the Dealer to Keep His Terms and Prices Up, His Collections at High Efficiency and
to Restrict all Tendencies to Slack—Dealers Can Aid Manufacturers in Their Difficulties
by Selling Music Intelligently and Players on Proper Basis
If one could ask every manufacturer of player-
pianos in the whole country what he would like
best of all to have the dealers understand and
practice during the next few months, it is very
probable that the answer would be in almost
every case:
The finest thing every dealer can do at this
time, for the benefit of the manufacturer with
whom he does business, for his own personal
benefit, and for the benefit of the entire indus-
try from which he makes his money, is to keep
his prices and terms up, maintain his own col-
lections at the highest grade of efficiency and
restrict all tendency to slack up on his methods
of doing business.
There is nothing particularly startling about
a pronouncement like this, but perhaps some-
thing better than startling: it is entirely apt
and entirely true. The piano business, of which
the player-piano business is the better part, let
us remember, is going to have to deal with
some very remarkable conditions during this
year 1923. Some of them, in fact most of them,
will be highly favorable if only the trade gives
them a chance, as it were. But foolish action at
the present time and during the next few
months will make, a great deal of trouble for
all branches of the industry.
Shortage Inevitable
Let us look at the situation clearly. It is
almost certain that the demand for pianos and
player-pianos this year will exceed the ability
of the manufacturers to keep up with it. There
are several reason for this certainty. On the
one hand the period of immediate deflation of
paper values, which began during the latter part
of 1920, has, for the time being, come to an
end, and we are now in the middle of an ap-
parent reversal of direction, with a re-expansion
of trading volume and a not wholly healthy
swelling of credit facilities. This new inflation
represents, in fact, one of those secondary
phases incident to all great commercial cycles,
and is likely to be followed by a corresponding
deflation once more, although if this latter con-
dition later comes into existence, its effects
will probably not be very severe. The world
is slowly getting back upon its commercial feet
and in all directions the signs are encouraging.
Still it is well to realize that the present period
of secondary inflation is not in every respect an
unmixed blessing.
Especially is this true with regard to the
economic position of the music industries. The
player-piano is just the straight piano writ large,
and whatever hinders piano production hinders
player production to just the same relative de-
gree. In fact, since now the player-piano com-
prises the bigger part of the piano industry,
the production difficulty, whenever it becomes
threatening, is worse than it would have been
some years ago; for the player-piano is more
complicated and more costly than its prede-
cessor.
The production difficulty at present is prin-
cipally a labor and material difficulty. Processes
are being refined and better methods are being
thought out and applied; but there is no im-
mediate way of getting around the shortage of
skilled help and the high cost and uncertain
supply of piano actions, keys, player actions,
wire, plates, hammers, varnish, veneers, core
stock and other essential accessories. We have,
in fact, on the one hand, a rapidly recovering
public, with a partly restored purchasing power;
while on the other hand we have a labor market
operating against the manufacturer all the time
and a supply market where the same conditions
are applying in such a way as by just so much
to increase the manufacturer's many difficulties.
In other words, the manufacturer's position
is by no means wholly enviable. He is booking
orders and doing his very best to fill them. If
he were not to book them his dealers would feel
dissatisfied, believing that some sort of dis-
crimination was being applied against them. If,
on the other hand, he were to find himself
unable to handle the orders sent into him he
would be cursed for an unprogressive business
man whose organization is in poor condition
and cannot take care of the business it solicits.
And that is how that is.
What's the answer? For one thing, of course,
it all means that wholesale piano prices must
go higher. No matter how much one may wisli
to keep them down, no power on earth can
prevent the costs of manufacturing from rising
steadily, so long as the outlined conditions con-
tinue to apply. Wherefore it is absolutely neces-
sary to point out that a new state of affairs is
about to come into existence and that dealers
will simply have to take into consideration all
the consequences thereof.
If manufacturers have to raise their prices it
may be taken for granted that they will act
only upon the most powerful necessity. It will
be a sign that they are compelled to take note
of their own position. It will also be a warning
to dealers to put their own houses in order and
especially not to accept any business which is
likely to mean extended terms, slow pay and
consequent need to ask for extensions of credit.
In a word, the dealer, if he is wise, will begin
to enforce his collections, clean up his bills re-
ceivable and make up his mind to adhere closely
to the terms on which he is supposed to be
doing business with his manufacturers.
The Golden Age
After all, it is not so much to ask. During
the war, and for eighteen months following the
cessation of hostilities, there existed what was
called a sellers' market. The supply of manu-
factured goods was far below the demand and
money was plentiful among all classes of the
population. In consequence, cash was paid by
thousands of people who had previously had to
buy on long time, and dealers in musical in-
struments, especially in player-pianos, found
themselves in a sound financial position, very
often for the first time in years. During this
period it was possible for many, if not for most,
manufacturers to get their business on to some-
thing approaching a cash basis, with resulting
benefits all around. Many manufacturers found
themselves able, for the first time in their ca-
reers, to think somewhat of what they were
making, in place of confining their thoughts to
the problem of financing their retail agents. This
was the brief Golden Age of the Music Indus-
tries.
With the coming of the great deflation all
this passed away like a dream. The old prac-
tices came back, mainly because for a time there
was much more of supply than of demand. But
since it is always easier to slide into sin than
to climb back to grace, so it is that dealers who
have been slipping back into the ways of old
now need to be reminded that another era of
prosperity is before them, if only they will mend
their methods in accordance with its approach.
How Dealers Can Help
Nothing revolutionary need be asked. It is
only necessary to impress upon every retailer
that the manufacturers are going to face during
the coming year some very tough financial
problems, based mainly upon the many difficul-
ties they will be compelled to overcome in pro-
duction.
No one, then, can consider their request un-
reasonable, when they ask dealers to do nothing
to make settlements more difficult. That is to
say, the present tendency downwards of piano
and player advertising should be sharply
checked, the "bargains" should be banished and
all work should be done from the standpoint
of sound business.
For it is surely easy enough to see, with the
war experience before our eyes, that music is
only waiting to be sold intelligently. Phono-
graphs and radio can no more affect unfavor-
ably the sale of player-pianos than of cheese,
if only the music merchant will use horse sense.
The present, of all times, is not, emphatically
not, the time to sell terms and prices. Now
is the time to sell music.
This is all not intended as mere preaching,
as we all know it is very easy for the preacher,
if he does not care what he says. It is intended
no more for the sole benefit of the manufac-
turer's interests. It is, in fact, intended for the
benefit of the dealer himself quite as much, for
it is an elementary truth that what benefits one
benefits all in this industry of ours. No dealer
can prosper in these days at the expense of the
manufacturer. No manufacturer who tries to
take advantage of dealers' difficulties will get
very far to-day. It is a mutual undertaking,
this industry of ours. Let us try to think of
it as what it is, and put our house in order mean-
while.
STATE COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED
Merchants' Association Announces Names of
New State Commissioners for the Current
Year in Twenty-eight States
The National Association of Music Merchants
announces that the following have been ap-
pointed State commissioners representing the
Association for the year 1923:
Colorado, Frank D. Darrow, Darrow Music
Co., Denver; Maryland, C. J. Roberts, Charles
M. Stieff, Inc., Baltimore; Montana, A. E.
Reeves, Helena; Wisconsin, L. C. Parker,
Badger Talking Machine Co., Milwaukee; Texas,
W. L. Bush, Bush & Gerts Piano Co., Houston;
Iowa, E. Paul Jones, Des Moines; Massachu-
setts, Lawrence Barry, Boston; Arizona, J. W.
Dawson, Phoenix; Arkansas, H. V. Beasley,
Texarkana; California, G. W. Hughes, Wiley B.
Allen Co., San Francisco; Connecticut, Alfred
Fox, Fox Piano Co., Bridgeport; Florida, J. A.
Turner, Tampa; Georgia, William Manning,
Manning Music Co., Augusta; Illinois, Charles
C. Adams, Peoria, and Fred P. Watson, Mt.
Vernon; Indiana, Wilbur Templin, Elkhart;
Michigan, A. H. Howes, Grinnell Bros., Detroit;
Missouri, E. A. Parks, Parks Music House,
Hannibal; New Jersey, E. G. Brown, Bayonne;
New York, Milton Weil, Krakauer Bros., New
York City; North Dakota, Guy Stanton, Stone
Piano Co., Fargo; Ohio, A. D. Smith, Akron;
Oregon, J. H. Dundore, Sherman, Clay & Co.,
Portland; Pennsylvania, W. C. Hamilton, Pitts-
burgh; South Dakota, A. E. Godfrey, Williams
Piano Co., Sioux Falls; Tennessee, Lynn
Sheeley, Morristown; Vermont, W. G. Marshall,
White River Junction; Virginia, J. D. Hobbie,
Jr., Roanokc; Washington, R. E. Robinson,
Sherman, Clay & Co., Seattle.
BRUCE PIANO COJPLANS BRANCH
VIDEN, I I I . , March 26.—The Bruce Piano Co.,
of Springfield, 111., recently completed arrange-
ments for the opening of a branch store here.
The company has been in business for several
years and is widely known in Springfield and
the surrounding territory.