Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
REVIEW
fUJJIC TIRADE
VOL. LXXVI. No. 15 Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 373 4th Ave., New York, N. Y.
April 14, 1923
sln
*JS
,£ o & r 8
$2.00 Per
l°° ent *
Year
illMIIIKIIIfflllKM
Manufacturers 9 Exhibits and Dealers' Responsibility
"•"•"••'"•
•
i.iiiiiiilliiliill.iii.cii
IIKIIIfflllBIKII«KIIIKIllKII(Kil«
EFERRING to the reports coming- from Chicago, a very substantial number of manufacturers are
arranging to have more or less elaborate displays of their products at the Drake during the period of
the convention in June, and it is expected that a number of new things of general interest to the retail
trade will be exhibited and demonstrated.
The exhibits are being made by the manufacturers with the full consent and, in a measure, at the sug-
gestion of the merchants themselves in the belief that it is to the advantage of both the producers and dis-
tributors to have the convention delegates become familiar with the new products.
The question now arises as to how much serious attention will be given the exhibits by those dealers
who go to Chicago. By serious attention is not meant simply a cursory glance or a passing comment. The
exhibits are made at considerable expense and with the idea primarily that they will be productive of sufficient,
immediate and future business to make them worth while. It is admitted that the dealer cannot buy everything
that is offered him, but he can, if he knows his requirements and the prospects of business in his territory,
place orders that will help to solve his stock problem during the Fall and Winter months and save the manufac-
turer considerable selling expense.
In fact, one member of the trade, who as the result of experience is not entirely sold on the exhibit idea,
advances the suggestion that retailers coming from Chicago and likely to be interested in the new lines ex-
hibited should come prepared to place definite orders sufficient to meet their requirements until the first of the
new year, if for no other reason than they can thus cut down selling costs by making it unnecessary for the
manufacturer to send his traveling men for their orders and leaving the latter free to go after business in new
fields.
Some manufacturers have in the past received results in the way of orders from exhibits, but a close
scrutiny of most of the orders indicated that they were woefully small and were valuable more for the fact
that they represented a new account on the books and future business development than a paying business at
the outset.
There have been cases where dealers have taken up the time of salesmen at exhibits for an entire morn-
ing or afternoon and then endeavored to tie up a substantial territory for the lines on the basis of an order
for two or three instruments. In other cases dealers have been known to place orders for two or three dozen
instruments of various makes in a desire to prove friendly and obliging and then cancel about 80 per cent of the
orders as soon as they reached home.
The retailers who attend the convention evidently want exhibits—in fact, they have given their endorse-
ment to exhibits on several occasions. But if the idea is worth carrying out at all it is worthy of serious
attention. The average dealer will find among the lines exhibited at least one or two which he carries regularly.
He knows what the product is worth from the sales standpoint, and he expects to sell some of them during the
coming months. He can thus save a trip to the factory and still have the advantage of buying with the sample
before him by coming to the convention with buying in his mind.
Certain dealers have declared that they hesitated to buy at conventions owing to the feeling that they
were being rushed into placing an order and did not have a full opportunity for weighing the matter. As a
matter of fact, the retailer has a better chance to pause and ponder over the average convention exhibit than
he ever has in the factory showroom.
The main point is that the displays will be made at the convention. The retailers have endorsed that
phase of convention activities, and if those who are in a position to order as generously as possible with a view
to meeting their requirements for the balance of the year will do so the industry as a whole will effect sub-
stantial savings both in sales cost and in more economic factory operation.
R