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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
VOL. LXXV1II. No. 2
Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
Jan. 12, 1924
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Balancing Orders Over the Year a Success
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"1HAT the policy of retail piano merchants balancing their orders over the several months of the year,
and advising manufacturers of their definite requirements well in advance of the actual need of instru-
ments, is a sound one has been amply demonstrated during the past year by those merchants who have
adopted this plan so strongly advocated by The Review and by manufacturers who have seen the evil of
a fluctuating demand.
The fact that the production of many piano factories was kept somewhat below normal during the year
through inability to obtain a sufficient number of trained workers does not alter the situation, except to add
importance to that policy. Even with plenty of workers available, it is decidedly against sound economics
to have a factory of any sort rushed to the limit of its facilities and paying heavy overtime wages for
three or four months of the year and then for the remaining months being compelled to reduce its organiza-
tion to a skeleton through lack of orders.
A significant feature of the order-dividing policy has been that, among those who follow the practice
conscientiously during the year, there were remarkably few cancellations reported, and the cancellation of
orders on the part of the trade as a whole was negligible as compared with the records of other years that
might be considered from the standpoint of business to be in the same class as 1923.
One retailer who analyzed his normal requirements for the year, and placed his orders accordingly for
month by month delivery, went so far as to declare that for the first time in his history he had an actual gauge
on his business and attributed a material part of the increase in summer sales to the fact that deliveries ordered
in advance had been made at that time and that he found it necessary to put forth stronger sales efforts to
move the stock. In other words, the excess deliveries during the Summer proved an advantage rather than a
burden.
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building up and maintenance of a permanent and efficient organization with sufficient steady work guaranteed
to keep the factory workers interested and loyal. Shutting down a plant, even temporarily, invariably means
the loss of workers who are inclined to look for and quite frequently find more lucrative and steady employ-
ment in other lines of business, both competitive and non-competitive.
This means decreased efficiency in the plant when it is restored to full operation due to the necessity of
training new men or fitting trained men into the organization. It means a higher percentage of labor turn-
over, which is costly under any circumstances. It means, in short, higher production costs, which are ad-
mittedly not to the advantage of the retailer, who must go out and get the higher prices from his customers
in competition with instruments produced more efficiently and therefore more cheaply.
With the successful experience of last year, and in numerous individual cases of previous years, before
them, piano merchants might well give thought to the question of more even distribution of orders and de-
liveries during 1924. Some of them are already showing an inclination to follow this method again, but the
more general it becomes the more economically sound will become piano manufacturing.
It is not altogether a one-sided matter in favor of the manufacturer, for it means for the dealer
prompter deliveries than he is accustomed to under the plan of hit-or-miss ordering, and insures him against
a serious lack of goods when the demand of the ultimate buyer is at its peak. It will not overcome entirely
the shortage of popular models that occurs periodically, but it will prove a great aid in cutting down that short-
age in the long run.
The piano business has developed to a point where it is to be considered stabilized and out of the
gambling class. The time is past, therefore, when either manufacturers or distributors can expect the other
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fellow to hold the bag and do all the guessing.
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