Classic Mode

Music Trade Review

Issue: 1924 Vol. 78 N. 12

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MARCH 22,
THE
1924
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
THE POINT OF REVIEW
HK announcement of the prize-winners in the sales contest
T
recently conducted under the auspices of the Estey Piano Co.
brought one striking fact to view and that is that those who were
responsible for formulating the conditions under which it was held
did not permit themselves to be dazzled by mere volume of sales,
but in awarding the prizes took into consideration all the other
elements which go to make up a good retail piano sale. Had volume
been the criterion, that is the sole criterion, by which the prizes
were awarded, unquestionably the contest would have been a greater
influence for harm than good, and its result would never have been
the large number of good sales which it created for the dealers
whose salesmen participated. But, when the salesman who was
striving for a prize considered that terms, down-payments and other
elements placed points to his credit, as well as the volume of the
sales which he made, his attitude changed entirely and the high-
power salesmanship, which such contests usually create, that is
the urge to make sales at any cost and with no due regard for ulti-
mate profit, was immediately eliminated from their work.
m
&
m
us see what the contest accomplished. The gross sales re-
L ET ported
amounted to $742,719, over a period of three months,
the duration of the contest. On this gross, down-payments of cash
amounted to 28 per cent, and of the total number of sales made
16 per cent were entirely for cash. Without any question at all
this is a higher percentage than the average existing in the trade
at the present time and shows unqualifiedly that many sales are
made today on long terms when there exists no real necessity for it
save the fact that the salesman finds it easier to sell in that way.
Considering the terms on which the instalment sales were made,
we find that 32 per cent were under eighteen months, and 26 per
cent under twelve months, while of the total number of sales, 95
per cent were under thirty months. These figures again are prob-
ably much better than the average existing in the trade and show
what can actually be accomplished when there is a real incentive
for the salesman to do it.
K . m %
HESE figures hold an object lesson for the average piano
dealer. There has always been among the retail dealers too
much of a desire to sell, that is, to sell on any and all terms in order
to move the goods. Some of the most spectacular failures in the
retail trade have been traced to just that particular basis. The
dealer has been dazzled by a heavy gross volume of business and in
the drive for that has permitted both himself and his salesmen to
lose view of the fact that a sale is never a real sale unless the mar-
gin of profit is protected. It has meant the accumulation of long-
time paper, which is invariably poor paper in its ability to pay out
within its contractual limits, a heavy collection expense with a large
percentage of past due, heavy interest and discount costs, and all
else that goes with this condition. As a result the overhead repre-
sented in the average sale has been considerably increased, and in
many cases without the dealer knowing it, with the result that the
profit has neared the vanishing point and the dealer himself has been
unable to meet his current obligations from his current collections.
When this point is reached in a retail piano business, usually things
are beyond remedy and there is little that can be done to place it
on its feet once more. The whole thing is due to the desire to sell
at any cost and the delusion regarding the actual facts of the case
which always follows in the train of such a desire.
T
f
f
«
conditions have been placed before dealers more times
T HESE
than can be counted. Their invariable reply to their exposition,
when they replied at all, was that to do business he had to do it on
such terms. The Estey Piano Co. contest shows what a big mistake
he is making in taking such an attitude and it also places the direct
responsibility for such a condition upon his own shoulders. The
reason for this is simple. It shows that the retail piano salesman
can sell upon a different basis than the average one prevailing and
that it is up to the dealer who directs a retail selling organization to
L
bring him around to a different attitude. It is not a difficult thing
to do; the Estey Piano Co. did it by holding this contest without
having the direct personal contact with the salesmen that the dealer
has with the men he employs. What the dealer must do is make the
salesman realize that his standing with his house depends not alone
upon the volume of sales he makes, but upon the quality of the
sales he makes as well, and that this in the long run figures equally
in his ultimate compensation. Once this is done there will be a
good deal of a change in retail selling, that is, if it be done at all
widely.
m J¥ S¥
E hear a lot to-day regarding the overextension of retail
credits. Some go so far as to call it a menace to the finan-
cial stability of the country. Without going so far as to agree with
this statement, it is unquestionable that instalment credit is abused.
Put into effect at first simply to make it possible for a larger number
of people to buy such products as pianos where the value of the
unit sale is comparatively large and thus impossible for them to pay
in one sum, in the piano trade to-day it has come to be regarded as
the usual way of selling, so much so that many salesmen never think
of asking a prospect to pay cash; in fact, the element of cash, out-
side of the size of the clown payment, rarely enters the sale at all.
Yet there are thousands of pianos sold to-day to people who are
perfectly able to pay cash and who would pay it if the salesman
who is making the sale would take a little trouble to try and get it.
Following the paths of least resistance may be all very well, but they
usually lead in a direction that is not the proper one to follow.
W
%
5¥
ft
real outstanding feature of the Estey Piano Co. sales con-
T HE
test was this object lesson. We do not remember ever having
seen it shown so plainly before in the history of retail piano selling.
It has definitely established that the average retail piano sale is made
on terms that are longer than they should be. It has shown that
many evils in the trade, which the dealer has considered as a part of
his burden, are quite unnecessary and come from a wrong viewpoint.
It has demonstrated that the volume of outstanding retail paper is
far beyond what it should be, were a little reason and common sense
used in making it through sales. The contest was national in its
scope and was open to practically all comers, good, bad and indiffer-
ent salesmen. It represented a cross section of the trade, not picked
men. That is what makes it all the more valuable and why its con-
tribution to a more detailed knowledge of actual selling conditions
should lead to a measure of reformation at least. And that reforma-
tion is needed at the present time, for there exists to-day a tendency
to go back to the old methods of long terms and small down-pay-
ments, a tendency which is confirmed by the most casual study of
retail piano advertising at the present time.
&
$£ Jg
AESAR was warned to beware of the Ides of March. Well,
now 1 that they are past, we might as well say that the piano
dealer is in a like case, for the middle of March these days means
a falling off in business. But to draw conclusions therefrom that
a period of general business depression is threatening is nonsense.
The piano dealer has been doing what everybody else has been do-
ing—he has been paying the first instalment of his income tax. He,
like all the rest of us, has been curtailing his expenditures. When
you have to pay actual cash to the Government you don't spend any
more than you have to until you are over the shock. As a result,
for a while at least, people are not buying pianos. As Walter Hep-
perla, of the Premier Grand Piano Corp., said last week, the average
income tax instalment is about equivalent to the down-payment on
the purchase of a piano and the Government gets it, for the piano
dealer has no way of penalizing the person who refuses to give it to
him in exchange for his instruments. A temporary lull is all we are
in for and that is soon going to pass. So stop wailing and get down
to business—the only way the dealer is going to get his instalment
back is to sell more instruments—and, of course, sell them on better
terms.
THE REVIEWER.
C
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
MARCH 22,
1924
Competition in Relation to Location
How Competition Must Be Considered in Opening a New Music Store—Often Where It Is the Most Active Is
the Best Location—The Advice of a Western Manufacturer in Connection With This Problem
—Seeking the Line of Least Resistance Usually a Profound Error
B
USINESS men are not necessarily lazy,
but the "seeking the line of least resist-
ance" is generally thought to be a merit.
Probably so, but the line of least resistance as
it appears on the surface is often the line of
greatest resistance.
A prominent Chicago manufacturer told the
writer of a man who came to him and said he
had accumulated a little money and thought he
would like to open a piano store somewhere.
He wanted to handle the manufacturer's line
and thought that possibly he could suggest a
good place to locate. He said he did not have
very much experience in such matters, although
he had sold pianos for other people for several
years and felt that he needed guidance. The
manufacturer suggested a certain small city and
then found that the applicant had more ideas
on the subject than he had professed. "Why,"
said he, "that is the very last place in which I
should like to run a store. You see there are
so many other stores there. I should like to
go where I would have little or no competition."
Then he mentioned a town he had his eye on.
"Now that is where you are going wrong,"
said the manufacturer. "Don't you know that
the best place for a man, especially one who
has not had a whole lot of experience, to locate
is where there is competition?" Noticing the
look of astonishment on his visitor's face, he
continued, "You see, in such a place you have
the advantage of having had experienced men
do the preparatory work for you. The ground
has been cultivated. There are a lot of pianos
and talking machines and small goods to be
sold in the town I have mentioned, but prac-
tically everybody who has not bought is a pros-
pect because everybody has been worked and
everybody is thinking about the subject." Then,
continued the manufacturer, I gave my friend,
the would-be locater, another jolt. I told him
that I picked out that town because the com-
petition there was of a particularly mean char-
acter. Before I suggested the town for my
friend, however, I knew that he was a good
man, would be a clean merchant and was, withal,
a fighter. I explained to him that I figured the
people of that town were about tired of the
disreputable methods that had been used and
that he would get the confidence of the people
almost immediately by following, as I knew he
would, upright methods, and that they would
like his aggressive but clean advertising.
A Bad Location
"Now, the town you mention, especially
among those where competition was at a mini-
mum," I said, "has often been considered as a
location by some of our dealers, but it was
avoided because it is particularly dead. Why,
half the population is made up of retired farm-
ers who are not buyers of anything except the
very bare necessities of life.
'
"Even if this were not true in so great a
degree, do you not see that the creation of a
demand there would be the work of an experi-
enced man and of a pioneer at that?
"Well, after a. while my friend was brought
to a realization of the truth as I conceived it.
He followed my suggestion as to the town" in
which to locate, and everything I prophesied
has come to pass. He's had the time of his
life, the fight of his life, he's of Irish extraction,
and he has enjoyed it immensely. Also he is
making money and, by the way, has practically
O
N
revolutionized selling methods in that town. It
has been cleaned up under his influence and
competition."
Of course, it must not be gathered from this
that anyone, the writer or the manufacturer
who has been quoted, advises a man to start
a store in a commercially overcrowded district.
In all these articles it is to be assumed that
going to extremes even in commendable meth-
ods is not advocated.
Now take Chicago. There's Shea, Grosvenor,
Walsh, Schoessling, Bowmann and quite a few
other men who spent their years in the Loop
in either the retail or wholesale branches of the
music business, but who in the past two years
have opened up music stores in the outlying
districts of the city. It's no cinch running a
a neighborhood store either, with the tremen-
dous competition both from other neighbor-
hood stores and from the big stores in the
"loop." But this is not a neighborhood store
story, primarily.
Another thing I have frequently seen, and it's
positively inspiring. I've seen men with a lot
of confidence in the trade, and incidentally in
themselves, take hold of run-down stores and
build them up into notable successes. I know
some stories, true stories, along this line that
take the rank of commercial romances and
sometime I'm going to tell them in these col-
umns. After all, it isn't the location so much
as it is the man. Music trade history is full of
instances of men who have won the fight under
great handicaps by dint of hard and intensive
work and the exercise of a keen intelligence.
There are plenty of detailed considerations in
this matter of locating a music store, and as
this article is on its face merely of an intro-
ductory character the subject will be pursued
at a future time.
Majority of Association
Members Oppose Exhibits
everyone to make better use of it and to under-
stand and appreciate it."
Rural communities and small towns are ex-
pected to form one of the strongest links in
the chain of the first National Music Week cel-
ebration in May. The observance in the smaller
communities should be relatively as extensive
and as widely representative of all groups as
. in the big centers of population, though the
form or organization may be somewhat dif-
ferent.
Recent additions to the National Music Week
Committee include Mrs. Oliver Harriman, presi-
dent Camp Fire Girls; L. J. Taber, National
Master National Grange; Mrs. A. H. Reeve,
president National Congress of Mothers and
Parent-Teacher Associations; Olive M. Jones,
president National Education Association of the
United States; Robert E. Speer, president Fed-
eral Council of the Churches of Christ in
America.
These new members of the committee, repre-
senting as they do organizations of national
importance in a wide variety of fields, indicate
the widespread and rapid growth of the Music
Week idea, and the appeal which it has made
to leaders of important activities all over the
United States.
Responses to Questionnaire Sent Out by Na-
tional Piano Manufacturers' Association Serve
to Uphold Executive Resolution
Following the adoption at the mid-Winter
meeting of the executive committee of the Na-
tional Piano Manufacturers' Association of a
resolution barring exhibits from the convention
hotel in June, there appeared to develop some
objections to the resolution from those who
felt that the holding of the convention offered
an opportunity for the manufacturers to display
and the dealers to inspect the new instruments
produced during the year.
Taking cognizance of these objections the
National Piano Manufacturers' Association on
March 4 sent out a questionnaire to its member-
ship asking the individual members to declare
themselves either in favor of or opposed to ex-
hibits in the official convention hotel.
The majority of the manufacturers replied to
the questionnaire, 21 per cent being in favor of
exhibits and 79 per cent opposed. The results
are particularly appreciated by the executives
of the Association, who feel that in presenting
and passing the resolution they acted in accord-
ance with the desires of the majority of the
membership.
Secretary of Agriculture
Endorses Music Week Plan
Joins Other Government Officials in Support
of Movement—Important New Members
Added to National Music Week Committee
The latest prominent Government official to
endorse the National Music Week to be ob-
served throughout the country from May 4 to
10 is Henry C. Wallace, Secretary of Agricul-
ture, who in a recent letter said:
"I am glad that you have called my attention
to the efforts which are being made to make
National Music Week a success. I am entirely
in sympathy with this movement. Good music
is now more generally available than ever be-
fore, and the establishment of Music Week, it
seems to me, is an excellent way to induce
K
B £ E
Paige Completes Alterations
TERRE HAUTE, IND., March 16.—Extensive altera-
tions have recently been completed in the W.
H. Paige & Co.'s music store at 642 Wabash
avenue, adding greatly to the appearance of the
place and contributing additional space and con-
venience. A new broad stairway has been
erected in the rear of the store, leading to the
mezzanine and to the piano department on the
second floor. All of the former booths have
been dismantled and in their place the Unico
system of soundproof glass booths has been
installed. In addition to these the store has
been provided with a number of Audaks.
R. W. Dilley's New Store
MONTROSE, CAL., March 14.—R. W. Dilley, re-
cently of Glendale, has opened a large and com-
plete music store at 817 Montrose avenue. He
will carry a full line of nationally known pianos
and phonographs.
N
C
*

Download Page 5: PDF File | Image

Download Page 6 PDF File | Image

Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).

Pro Tip: You can flip pages on the issue easily by using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.