Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MAY
31, 1924
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
Walter C. Hepperla Tells of Part the
Grand Is Playing in Today's Industry
Summarizes Observations Made in the Retail Music Merchants' Warerooms on Trip From the
Atlantic to the Pacific Coast—How the Grand Has Raised the Trade's Standards
ALTER C. HEPPERLA, president of the
Premier Grand Piano Corp., returned re-
cently from a transcontinental trip, in the course
of which he visited a number of leading cities
of the country, spending considerable time on
the Pacific Coast and getting in close contact
with an increasing number of dealers handling
Premier baby grands.
Mr. Hepperla made a close study of business
W. C. Hepperla
conditions as he found them in the various sec-
tions and was particularly impressed with the
rapid strides being made by the small grand
piano in every part of the country and the ex-
cellent salesmanship being put back of that in-
strument by the various retail organizations.
In commenting on the situation as he found
it Mr. Hepperla said:
"My visit to the various prominent piano mer-
chants in the large cities en route to the Pacific
Coast, including such cities as Detroit, Chicago,
St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles
and San Francisco, and the conferences with the
sales forces of those progressive merchants who
sell the Premier baby grand have impressed.me
more than ever with the powerful element the
grand piano has become in retail piano selling.
"It has been refreshing to look in upon these
various warerooms and note the wonderfully
appealing displays of grands, from the small,
popular-priced grands to the larger and more
expensive types.
"Such beautifully arranged warerooms, dis-
playing grand pianos in what seems almost
limitless variety, have been apparent in every
house I have visited and it has doubly impressed
me because such large displays but naturally
reflect the extensive demand on the part of the
American public for the grand.
"To me these displays, have, no doubt, been
even more interesting than to most piano manu-
facturers, because it seems such a long call from
the day when these same houses and, in fact,
piano merchants everywhere, carried grands in
but a casual way, sold one occasionally and
made no money on the grand because of the
infrequency of sales. And, yet, it has been but
the short period of about ten years in which
this transformation has taken place.
"My keen interest in this, I presume, is but
natural, because of the fact that I have been
so closely allied since the first inception of the
small grand with the development of the grand
piano demand, so that it has become universally
used in homes of taste, refinement and where
the appreciation of good music is shown.
"When one considers that in all the years
up to the year 1913 the yearly production of
grand pianos by all the piano manufacturers in
the United States had not exceeded 9,000 per
year and that last year it is estimated that 55,000
to 58,000 grands were made and sold one can
more fully appreciate what tremendous strides
have been made. What, then, has been the prin-
cipal factor which brought about this rather re-
markable change in grand piano making and
selling?
The Sales Factor
"My visits to these leading piano merchants
in these principal cities and the pronounced
displays of small grands best prove that the
popular-priced small grand has been the type of
instrument which had made possible this re-
markable growth.
"Inquiry and investigation have shown that
the piano merchant has been enabled to give the
popular-priced grand extensive newspaper pub-
licity, because he was assured of reaping im-
mediate returns in the way of frequent and
liberal sales, and thus his grand advertising
meant a positive profit. Such was not the case
as regards the advertising of the grand before
the advent of the popular-priced grand.
"Due credit should be given the popular-priced
grand and the progressive piano merchants who
yearly gave this type of instrument its wide-
spread publicity.
Demand for Quality
"Next to the extensive displays of grands,
what has impressed me most in my visits on
this trip is that the piano merchants insist that
the small grand, though it be of popular price,
must show inherent musical and structural qual-
ity—that they fully realize it is only by offering
such desirable instruments that they are assur-
ing themselves of constructive and consistent
growth in their sale and that the merchandising
of grands which do not represent a certain
quality, no matter how cheaply they are bought
or sold, carries with it a certain penalty that
makes them expensive to sell.
"Not only has the grand brought to the
dealer increased volume of quality business, and
profitable business in the way of straight grand
sales, but so effective has the widespread de-
mand for the grand been created it has greatly
increased the love for the best in music and
decorative beauty and a deep respect on the
part of the public for the piano (which could
not have been created by the upright piano), so
that we find the public ready and willing to
invest up to $3,500 to $4,000 in reproducing
grands.
Ten Years Ago
"How well dealers and salesmen remember,
ten to fifteen years ago, that if a sale of a grand
piano was made for $800 to $1,000 it was an
'event,' was considered quite a remarkable sale,
and as one salesman recently expressed it to me:
'If a salesman sold a grand piano in those
days he would celebrate, would throw out his
chest and thought he didn't have to make an-
other sale of a piano for a couple of weeks to
keep up his record.
"What has been the result? We find many
houses doing retail business that runs into mil-
lions of dollars per year; selling pianos in dollar
value per week that exceeds what their monthly
sales formerly amounted to. And what a marked
advance is apparent everywhere in the high-
class retail salesmanship that grand piano sell-
ing has developed. As a whole they are a clean-
cut, aggressive type of men who show they are
proud to be 'piano salesmen,' that piano selling
done in a constructive way has become a science
or profession and one in which a high type of
men find it attractive and lucrative to be en-
gaged."
Victrola No. 80
$100
Mahogany, oak or walnut
Victor supremacy
is the supremacy
of performance
That is why the truly
great artists of the present
generation in ever-increas-
ing n u m b e r s are found
among the ranks of famous
Victor artists.
Victrola No. 410
$300
Electric, $340
Mahogany
Other styles $25 to $1500
HIS MASTER& VOICE"
There is but one Victrola and
that is made by the Victor Company
—look for these Victor trademarks.
"Wp
^ ^
- TRADE MARK
^k
Victrola
BEfi U S PAT OFF
Victor Talking
Machine Co.
Camden, N.J.