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REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXXX. No. 3 Published Every Satirday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Jan. 17,1925
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A $2,000 Music Roll Sale at Retail
Wellman P. Brickell, of the Retail Organization of Philip Werlein, Ltd., of New Orleans, Sells the Entire
Ampico Catalog to a Purchaser of the Ampico in the Chickering—What Can Be Done With
the Reproducing Record Roll When It Is Properly Handled by the Music Merchant
MUSIC roll or reproducing piano record
is too generally regained as the stepchild
of the retail music trade. It is true that
some millions of these rolls and records are
sold each year, but the nuinber is nothing like
what it should be wefe proper effort put behind
their exploitation. For the selling—if the term
selling can be used at all in connection with the
so-called roll department—is generally con-
ducted in the nature of a service to the cus-
tomer.
There are dealers who make the music roll
and record department stand on its own feet,
giving it a fair break in overhead and service
chargjes, allowing it a proper profit on rolls
given with instruments, and demanding that
there be some profit shown or that any loss be
explained. There are outstanding examples of
dealers who feature music rolls exclusively or
in a very big way, with distinctly satisfactory
results from a financial angle. But these dealers
arc the exception rather than the rule.
As the unit value of pia«os and reproducing
pianos sold maintains a high level or shows a
tendency to increase, the interest of the dealer
in those sales seems to wane accordingly, for
he cannot see in the two, three or four-dollar
roll sale a sufficient profit to interest him after
he has made several hundred dollars through
the sale of the instrument itself. Were the
dealer selling reproducing pianos every few mo-
ments during the day, with his sales staff con-
stantly active, such a stand might be justifiable.
But, as a matter of fact, his sales in most
cases must depend primarily upon the appeal
of the reproducing records that go with the in-
strument. The purchaser is spending several
hundred or several thousand dollars for an in-
strument that will reproduce music, and if the
means for the reproduction are not available,
then he is justified in feeling he has wasted
his money.
The Basis of Appeal
It has been pointed out on numerous oc-
casions that the reproducing record is the key-
note of the business. The whole exploitation
of the reproducing piano and, for that matter,
the ordinary player-piano, has been built not
around the mechanical features of the instru-
ment itself, but around the music by the great
composers and interpreted by the great pianists
which is made available to the home circle
through that medium. With this wealth of ex-
ploitation back of it it would seem that a real
opportunity is wasted when dealers concentrate
entirely upon the instrument itself and neglect
the sale of the record roll.
A
A few interviews with wholesale music roll
salesmen will bring forth some enlightening in-
formation as to the attitude of many dealers
regarding their roll and record departments.
One incident particularly as cited by a roll
salesman may be regarded as being almost rep-
r
HE music merchant who neglects his
music roll department is missing a valu-
able means of cash business and of repeat
sales. Especially is this true in regard to
the reproducing record roll in connection
with the reproducing piano. Here are two
instances of how these rolls can be sold, if
the music merchant impresses on himself^
first, and his salesmen, second, tne import
tance of this work.
resentative of many other cases throughout the
country. This salesman entered a dealer's
warerooms and found that, despite the fact that
he was doing a big reproducer business, his
entire record stock consisted of less than 300
rolls, or approximately 100 different titles,
though the catalog listed some thousand selec-
tions. The salesman naturally sought an oppor-
tunity to build up the dealer's library to a point
where it would oiTcr at least a fair assortment
of rolls for the consideration of the customer
who had paid anywhere from $1,200 to $4,000
for his reproducing piano, but the dealer could
not see the logic of it. The ordinary arguments
failing, the salesman secured from the dealer a
list of his customers and made a personal can-
vass of some score of them with the result that
he returned to the store with actual orders for
over 300 rolls, promises of orders for many
more, and a story regarding the desires of the
piano owners for new music which would have
elated the ordinary individual and made him
lake an immediate new slant on the proposition.
It was with difficulty that the dealer was
persuaded to sign an order for the rolls actually
sold by the wholesale man, with a score or
more very necessary rolls added, and it took
some sharp and direct talking to bring him to
terms. As a matter of fact, the profit to the
dealer on the business drummed up by the roll
man in less than a day was well over $100, and
yet the former still continued to regard his roll
department as a piker proposition. Had he
used the proper efforts himself he would not
only have kept his customers satisfied, for it is
the new music that keeps them satisfied, but he
would probably have sold many more rolls and
realized a gross profit that would have made
the roll department a valuable adjunct to his
business instead of, as he termed it, a handicap.
An Example
Can reproducing records be sold in quantities?
That is a question that has been answered in
the affirmative by various dealers and their
salesmen but never more emphatically than by
Wellman P. Brickell, of Philip Werlein, Ltd.,
Ampico representative in New Orleans, who in
a recent sale of a Chickering Ampico, listing
at something like $3,000, sold to the customer
at the same time the complete Ampico library
of records for approximately over $2,000 and
$500 worth of cabinets in which to keep them.
The entire deal was closed on a cash basis and
the roll part of it was due to some solid sales-
manship by Mr. Brickell, who has succeeded on
other occasions in persuading customers that a
generous library of records is a good invest-
ment and gives added value to the instrument
just bought.
The deal was not in any sense philanthropic,
but brought a profit on the rolls and cabinets
of over $1,000 to the Werlein house and very
probably a substantial commission check for
Mr. Brickell himself. Had he sold only 100 or
200 rolls the hour or two devoted to this divi-
sion of the sale would have brought in $100 or
more in clean profits, a no inconsiderable
amount even for a high-power salesman.
Sales of records to the customer at the time
the reproducing piano is sold and afterwards
do not bring results in profits on rolls alone,
but act as business stimulators for the reason
that it is only the reproducing piano that is
kept in action and maintains its interest for the
family that represents an advertisement for the
benefit of friends who may in turn become buy-
ers. If the customer simply wants a piano, he
can gratify his wish and save some hundreds of
dollars in the cost of the reproducing mechanism,
but the fact that he has been liberal in his pur-
chase indicates that he seeks an instrument that
will furnish music and not mere ornamentation.
To sell reproducing records does not mean
carrying only a sufficient stock to serve for
demonstration purposes. If the customer is to
be kept interested in new rolls and conse-
quently in his instrument, the dealer must carry
a library that will give him a full range of
selections should his taste range to the classics
or to the popular dance numbers.