DECEMBER
15, 1923
THE
MUSIC
TRADE
,5
REVIEW
Developing the Neighborhood Store
A Trend That Is Becoming Evident With the Music Merchant Located in the Large City, in Order That He
May Adequately Cover the Entire Territory From Which He Draws His Sales-A Well
Balanced Business One Result From This Type of Retail Organization
A well-known music merchant in a Middle
well-defined and separate city within the greater
\Vestern ci ty recently opened an elab ora te new
city. To· reach this market and to work it as
wareroom, probably the finest of its kind in
it sho uld be worked is practically impossible
his lo calit y. Every modern facility for the mer
from one store located perhaps miles away, but
chandising and display of musical ins truments
a local branch usually can do it and draw a
was included in its equipment, the decorations
large enough volume of business to make its
were in the best of taste and provided a rich
maintenance profitable.
sett in g fo r the lines of instrument s which he
The Foreign-born
ha ndl ed; in short, it represented the most ad
In th e larger ind ustrial cities this condition
vanced type of the modern retail music. store,
is complicated by the great colonies of foreign
The direct reaction upon his business was .born, who usually live to gether and constitute
rather remarkable. His volume of sales in the
a self-contained unit to a great degree. These
high-grade lines which he handled showed an people rarely buy anything outside of the dis
immediate increase, but th a t in the lower grade
trict in which they live, first because they seem
lines, and especially in popular-priced player
to regard the distant store with a degree of
pianos, showed a heavy falling off. This trend
s uspi cion and secondly becau se the woman of
continued for the first six months with the re
the family rarely goes but a few bla.cks from
sult that, although his total volume of business
her hom e. To cover such localities properly th e
remained practically the same, it was found that
local branch sto·r e is needed, for people of this
it was concentrated in practi call y one division
type are comparative ly large buyers of musical
of his s to ck and that the large market for the
instruments,
cheap e r goods which he once served had prac
A third e lem en t in this situation is th e growth
tically disappeared.
of lo cal pride in the neighborhood. There is
practically no large city to-day which has not
The Reas'o n
its local merchants' associations, who conduct
Analysis showed that the reason for this con
periodic drives to persuade the people who Jive
dition was largely due to the fact that the pur
chaser.of a popular-priced player-piano or some . in the immediate vicinity of their stores to
"B uy at Home," as they term it, and who spe nd
similar instrument in grade considered the new
cons iderab le amounts 0.£ money in supporting
warerooms as bein g too high-class in which to
purchase and fought shy of visiting it. His out- . such propaganda. The branch store located in
such a vicinity usually becomes a member of
s ide selling force .c omplained that th ey found
it almost impossible to bring such a prospect such an assoc iation and participates in the bene
fits of such campaigns. It is regarded as a real
to the store and when they did succeed in bring
part of the neighborhood and this is not at th e
ing on e the suspicion with which the latter re
expense of the central warerooms, for it obtains
garded the price quoted on the instrument made
sa les whi ch the central warerooms would never
it almost impossible to close the sale.
get anyhow. When a person buys a $1,000 in
I n this particular city, which has a large for
strument he will go to the central warerooms
eign population, this market is too important
usually; but when a person is in the market for
to be neglected. The merchant, after some
a $400 player-piano it is the local branch store.
thought, therefore opened a second store in
that gets the business. And there are a goo'
another section of the city, plainly equipped
many more people in the latter class than there
and concentrating on the lower-pric'ed lines.
The response was almost immediate and the are in the former, too many, in fact, for any
music merc han t to neglect.
seco nd six month s showed a gra tifyin g increase
There is a certain dealer in a large Eastern
in th e total volume of business, both stores
city who has developed this system with ex
showing an increased profit.
treme care. This particular municipality has a
A Growing Trend
This case is given in some detail to permit large foreign-born population which lives in cer
tain well-defined section s and which, in all
of pointing out a growing trend in the retail
ac tuality, is separated from the rest of the city .
piano business, especially in cities the popula
tion of which ran ges from 300,000 up. That is This dealer at the present ti me has three branch
the development of the neighborhood s tore, or stores, besides his main warerooms. Each of
the mana'ge rs of the se local branches is of the
a small branch music store catering to the par
ticular demands of the section of the city in . same nationality as that of the largest propOT
tion of the people to which it caters and the
which it is located. The past several years
have seen many of these stores opened, in some sales force of each of them has a large propor
cases merchants having as many as five or six·. tion of the same nationality in its make-up. As
Those who have dev eloped this system have a result the prospects to w hich th ey cater are
lar gdy sold in their own language by men who
reported but few failures, the new stores almost
understand their psychology perfectly and who
immediate ly showing a profit, provided they are
properly managed and designed to appeal to the are able to meet them on their own ground.
Besides this, these men have con nect ions with
type of people among which they are located.
practically all the local societies or benevolent
They are not usually expensive establishments
. to co,nduct and thus represent a low overhead associations to which the foreign-born belong
in large numbers; they tak e a prominent part in
on sales and th ey give the merchant close con
the local social life and are thus in a position
tact with and access to ' every market which
to maintain the best so'rt of contact with the
exists.
people to whom they are selling pianos or
It must be remembered that the lar ge Ameri
player-pianos. The plan has proven highly suc
ca n city at the present time, especially in the
cessful.
Middle West and in the East, is re ally a com
The Used Piano Store
bination of smaller cities, each of them having
Wi thin the last year or two there has been a
a developed individuality to some extent and
variation of th is plan which is largel y concerned
most of them their own well defin ed retail
with used pianos. A number of merchants , find
shopping centers. In a city like N ew York,
ing th at it was almost impossible to move used
for instance, there are thou sands of people who
instruments from their warerooms floor s, have
never buy any merchandise out of their own
opened separate stores to sell these: goods, usu
immediate locality, whose entire wants a re sup
ally a t some distance from their inain wa re
plied by loca l merchants within a few blocks of
rooms. The plan, in most cases,. has proven a
their hom es ann who live in what is really a
distinct s ucce ss, with the result that in the
future it is lik ely to develop on a lar ger scale.
Of course, it must be understood that the
problem of the neighborhood branch store is
one th at is confin ed exclusively. to the music
merchants who are locat ed in the large cities.
It is a plan of expansion that brin gs the mer
chant who tried it into competition wit h th e
loca l independent neighborhood dealer. But it
is one that creates a larger volume of sa les for
all concerned in the long run, for it means more
intensive sales work gene rally and the creation
of a greater number of piano prospects.
MISS SHAW AND DUO=ART IN RECITAL
Popular Pianist Assisted by Fred Sheffield Child,
Tenor, Presents Her Successful Costume Re
cital at Aeolian Hall, New York
At Aeolian Hall on last Saturday evening,
December 8, Miss Eleanor Shaw, popular Amer
ican pianist, assisted by Fred Sheffield Chi ld,
tenor, and the Duo-Art piano, presented the
very interesting and attraCtive costume recital
which these art ists have offered with so much
success in various sections of the country and
which is de,;igned to emphasize convincingly th e
possibilities of the Duo-Art piano as a solo and
accompanying instrument.
In the recital are offered four periods in mu
sic, with the artis'tS richly cost um ed according
to the style of each of those periods. The first
section was devoted to the music of the early
e ighteenth century with the artists costumed
as court musicians of that time, Miss Shaw's
gown, of great richness, being the exact copy of
a Romney print. I n this sectio·n are presented
instrumental and vocal selections from the com
positions of Haydn, Hand el, Beethoven, etc.
In part two the artists appear in the formal
evening dress of th e middle nineteenth cen
tury and offer selections by Schubert, Meyer
beer a nd Chopin, the latt er r epresented by his
Valse Op. 34 No. I, reproduced by the Duo-Art
piano from the playing of Paderewski.
Part three has to dO' with the music of ap
proximately forty years ago and well within the
memory of the living generation, In this sec
tion );fiss Shaw offers " Echoes From th e
Academy," a clever arrangement of her own,
including a number of th e popular airs of the
period played alternately by herself and by the
Duo-Art piano from her own record ings. The
songs of the period include: "When You and
I Were Young, Maggie," " Nelly Bly," and
others.
The final section has to do' with the music
of the present day and in cludes so ngs and piano
compositions by Sternberg, Dunn, Rebikoff, De
bussy, Dambois and Saint-Sae ns, with the Duo
Art piano reproducing the playing of Josef
Hofmann and Rudolph Ganz and also Dambois'
rendition of his clever "Bagatelle."
The concert itself is cleverly co nceived and
car ried out and the costumes, rich and accurate,
add immeasurably to th.e charm of the per
formance. Aeolian Hall wa s comfortably filled
with an aud ience that on numerous occasions
found it impossible to re stra in its en thusiasm .
WOOD BROS. OPEN NEW STORE
PITTSFIELD, MASS., December 12.-Wood Bros.
have recently announced the opening of their
new building at 421 North stree t . Th is concern
has been engaged in the piano business here for
the past forty-three years and carries a full line
of pianos and musical instruments .