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THE
MARCH 1, 1924
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
THE POINT OF REVIEW
does the average retail music merchant take inventory in
W HY
January? For no reason at all, save that he usually takes
inventory then. Why does he usually consider that the weeks imme-
diately after the first of the year must necessarily be dull ones?
Usually because he takes inventory then. It's a vicious circle of
whys and wherefores, and that is one reason why the campaign
which Arthur A. Friestedt, of the United States Music Co., is under-
taking, to change the inventory period from the first of the year to
June 30 or thereabouts, should meet with success. For January is
by no means the dull period which the merchant considers it, even
though it follows directly after the holiday rush. It is a time when
there is plenty of business to be had, if only the merchant and his
selling force are on the job and ready to go after it. But, as a
usual thing, the entire force is busy taking inventory, and inventory
in many a music store means a long period of inside work that takes
the time and the energy of every employe.
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R. FRIESTEDT has based his argument for a middle-of-the-
year inventory period on his own experience with the United
States Music Co. For years that concern has been taking inventory
in June, with so little disturbance of the ordinary routine of the
house that some of his men on the road never knew what time of
the year the house undertakes this job. As a result, the firm has
had no particular let-down in its selling efforts, just as the retail
music dealer who would follow its footsteps would find in his own
business. As Mr. Friestedt says himself, the artificial trade dullness
about the new year can be minimized considerably by the elimination
of the habit of cutting down essential stocks at that period and of
diverting productive energy into unproductive channels simply in the
effort to facilitate calendar year accounting.
But, the dealer may say, the Internal Revenue Department, in
calling for income tax statements, requires a calendar year account-
ing. This is widespread error. The Government requires either a
calendar or fiscal year in the tax statements returned. All that a
dealer who desires to change the time basis of his returns has to
do is to fill in a form of application thirty days prior to the close of
his present time period, requesting a change in accounting period.
Form 1128, United States Treasury Department, is the one that
should be asked for, and this describes in detail how inventory
taking may be shifted in date. There is enough selling resistance in
the retail music trade to prevent the dealer from going out of his
way to create artificial sales resistance, and that is exactly what he
does when he takes January as inventory time and permits his
selling effort to fall off while he is immediately concerned with the
work involved in that practice. How much is lost in actual money
by continuing in this tradition it is impossible to estimate, but the
sum must be a good one, which is better in the pockets of the indus-
try than outside of them.
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TT is a mighty interesting thing to visit the modern piano factory,
*- something which a man who is interested in the industry never
tires of. This is especially true of those plants which have devel-
oped the modern basis of quantity production. Close enough to
Buffalo, for instance, to be included in the great industries of that
city, and yet far enough away to be somewhat off the beaten track,
is the plant of the Rudolph Wurlitzer Mfg. Co., North Tonawanda,
or, more accurately, Martinsville, N. Y. Here in this plant is a
striking example of what has been accomplished in quantity produc-
tion of musical instruments of the piano, orchestrion and pipe-organ
classes. It is a common thing in the trade to hear of increased
efficiency in this or that piano plant as new factories are built or
reorganized. At the Wurlitzer plant the immensity of the various
departments as well as the efficiency and scientific planning with
which the varying forwarding processes are worked out impresses
the visitor deeply. For example, the plant has its own machine
shop, large enough to be an independent factory in itself, that sup-
plies the greater part of the hardware required, from tiny screws
up to the largest units necessary. This shop seemingly covers an
acre or more of ground, as does the great mill room, a woodworking
plant of imposing size and wonderfully equipped. A tour of inspec-
tion through the piano, orchestrion and pipe-organ departments of
the plant, each of which is separate in itself but an integral part of
the factory, is a veritable "little journey," and leaves the visitor
confused by the very immensity of the institution. The entire
factory is under the direct supervision of Farney Wurlitzer, presi-
dent of the company, who is an excellent example of the working
executive with the ability to visualize and then to develop his vision
into actuality;. He is the type of executive who shuns personal
publicity, but who goes after results, and, to judge by the plant
itself, certainly obtains them.
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T TALF a century handling one piano is a record that is not often
A A heard of in the retail piano trade. To sell the same instru-
ment for fifty years, and probably to sell it to two or three genera-
tions of a single family, is a tribute of no uncommon weight to the
house that makes it and to the enduring quality of the name that is
on its fallboard. The Kranich & Bach has been handled for fifty
years in Philadelphia by Gustav Herzberg of the old house of
G. Herzberg & Son. Fifty years ago was just two years before the
great Centennial Exposition in that city. Grant was President, and
the days of reconstruction were drawing to an end. Pianos then
were much different than they are to-day, that is, so far as the case
is concerned. The square then was not obsolete, and'what uprights
there were were not the plain and severe cases to which the buyer
of to-day is accustomed. Instead, ornate carving was the rule, for
it was the mid-Victorian era, the beginning of a time of great transi-
tion and change in public taste. But one thing has remained pretty
much the same. A good piano tone then is a good piano tone now,
and the Kranich & Bach graded high amdng American pianos then
as it does now. Fifty years ago it was not a new piano—it had
already stood the test of a quarter of a century. And that test it
had met successfully as it has the test of the succeeding fifty years.
Congratulations are due both to the house of Kranich & Bach itself
and to Mr. Herzberg, who, by the way, though an octogenarian, is
still active in his organization, which was founded in 1856.
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V£
book on handling sales organizations, both
A PRACTICAL
wholesale and retail, has long been needed, and the "Handbook
of Sales Management," by S. Roland Hall, recently published by
the McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, seems to fill the bill.
Mr. Hall will be remembered in the music industries as advertising
manager of the Victor Talking Machine Co. some years ago. The
book itself contains a large amount of valuable material, all of it
practical and all of it based on plans which have had success in
actual practice. Reading this book brings to mind the fact that too
many men rarely take notice of the development of business meth-
ods in fields outside of the one in which they operate. As a matter
of fact, selling in its fundamentals is very much the same, no matter
what may be the product sold. The lessons of experience, which are
so vital to the success of an executive, may be had in fields far
different from those in which he may be directly engaged. Of
course, they cannot be taken over without a degree of adaptation,
but that is comparatively a simple matter. Business men would be
much the better business men if they were to read a greater number
of business books. The day of the theoretical business book is
past, nor is it ever likely to return. The business man's dislike for
"book learnin' " as regards his own particular field is thus disap-
pearing. That is a good thing. Wide reading is a thing to be
cultivated, for wide reading in business, as in all other fields of
human endeavor, means wide knowledge.
Mf
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*m
instruments used to advertise socks—only in adver-
M USICAL
tisements, however. Peck & Peck, New York's hosiery house,
uses the caption in its advertising "Trumpet and Tabour," and illus-
trates them. As a result at first glance it looks like a small goods
advertisement.
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THE REVIEWER.