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VOL. LXXXI. No. 8
REVIEW
Published Every Saturday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. Aug. 22,1925
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The Talking Machine To-day Means
Good Sales Killed by Poor Selling
New Conditions in Talking Machine Retail Selling, Whereby Retail Merchant Must Give Full Co-operation
to Manufacturer, Confront This Industry—Merchandising Sense in Practical Application Should Be
Placed Behind Instrument—The Market Is There for the Man Who Goes After It
T is time for the retail music merchant who ments of their general music stores stopped
The talk of the intense competition between
maintains a talking machine department to short at the threshold of the talking machine
these two forms of home entertainment is
stop and take stock of the situation in that department because they knew their work was
more or less a defense complex set up to cover
field. It is time for him to get down to brass being done and because they were content to an uneasy feeling that something was wrong.
tacks, stop moaning about the situation, and let it rest at that. Human nature perhaps and
It is not so many years ago that music mer-
carefully cast up the advantages
chants had the same feeling
and disadvantages of such a de-
———^^M
H^M^BBMM
about the talking machine that
partment. And none need to do
they have to-day about the ra-
that more than those who have
dio. Then the instrument which
ANIC—and it is the only word which adequately describes
sung a dirge over what they
was going to be put out of busi-
consider a defunct instrument.
ness was the piano. Yet, to-
the attitude of retail music merchants towards the talking
For no greater mistake has ever
day in hundreds of thousands
machine during the past year or so—is largely at the bot-
been made in the retail music
of homes the piano and the
tom of the falling off in the sales of this instrument. A return to
trade than this.
talking machine stand side by
Lacking Intestinal Fortitude
side, not competing but supple-
common sense and clear thinking is an essential if a readjustment
Mincing no words, the trouble
menting each other. And in a
that will meet the new conditions in this field is to be brought
with the music dealer who has
good number of these homes
about. The article on this page of The Review is an attempt to
thrown up his hands at the talk-
the radio has come to make the
ing machine is that his way has
third
of the trio.
analyze conditions, not as they appear but as they actually are, in
been made so easy for him in
A Greater Selling Opportunity
retail talking machine merchandising. The Review has presented
the past that, in many cases, his
All these various new instru-
merchandising initiative
has
ments that come into the field
its views; it will welcome from either talking machine manufac-
been atrophied, his ability to get
mean a greater and wider sell-
turer or music merchant an expression of his.—EDITOR.
out and work is moribund, and,
ing opportunity for the retail
music merchant; where once a
confronted for the first time in
^™^•^^™ M »
single sale to a home was his
his career with sharp competi-
^^^^™^^^™
limit, now he has any number
tion, his intestinal fortitude has
of contacts. Yet each new instrument has been
caved" in. These perhaps are harsh statements, almost inevitable from the situation, but when
conditions changed and the merchants' co-oper- met with fear and trembling, but never perhaps
but what lias happened in this branch of the
music trade during the past eighteen months ation was needed as it had never been needed with such a virtual panic as this latest develop-
before in this branch of the industry, human ment. For the radio broke down the inertia of
has without a question proven their truth. And
nature proved a poor support and that co-oper- the retail music merchant in his talking machine
there are a lot of retail music merchants who
department and, in a majority of cases, left him
ation was lacking.
are admitting that truth right now, though not
floundering. Muddling through may win wars,
The Advent of Radio
shouting it from the housetops.
but it won't sell goods.
The advent of radio changed conditions in the
His Path Was Smoothed
talking machine field. The merchandising basis
Twenty-Five Years Late
No man ever had an easier path than the man
Faint murmurs are being heard in the trade
who sold talking machines at retail. The manu- of industry shifted. From a product that was
facturers put millions of dollars in national pub- practically without competition, the talking ma- to-day that the talking machine is coming back.
licity behind these instruments; they supplied chine confronted a competition in entertain- The truth of the matter is that the talking ma-
the retailer with every' possible sales help that ment that existed almost entirely in the minds chine has never been away; it is the merchant
had ever been conceived; they undertook and of the merchants who sold it. The music mer- who is back-tracking and getting a grip on him-
self. He is just beginning to perceive dimly
carried.out at their expense campaigns of ex- chant entered the radio field and he was right
ploitation which went into the most minute de- to do so, for his function is more than merely that the manufacturer cannot do 100 per cent
of the work any longer, that he himself has got
tail and which missed no opportunity for pos- selling musical instruments—he is the purveyor
sible sales. The dealer, and here is meant a of home entertainment for the people of the to work on a fifty-fifty basis. He is groping his
positive majority of the trade, had his goods country. But when a new field opened for way toward that realization and he is having a
profit, a permanent and a fertile one, why did hard time doing it. For he has got to learn
moved for him almost automatically, with the
the lesson of how to sell that great, permanent,
result that he gradually learned to rest upon the merchant drop another department which
the manufacturers' shoulders, to expect his work for years had carried perhaps the most steadily music-loving market which constitutes the real
to be done for him, to supply a demand created selling product that he had ever handled? Be- field of the talking machine approximately a
cause, though he may have distributed talking quarter of a century after he first began to dis-
for him instead of going out and selling the
product. Men who were and are good mer- machines for years, he did not know yet really tribute that instrument. He has got to stand
(Continued on page 4)
chandisers and able exnloiters in other depart- how to sell them.
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