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What Is in Store
For the Piano Industry
Mark P. Campbell, President of the Brambach Piano Co., Dis-
cusses the Future Trend of the Piano Industry as Economic
Forces Are Molding Its Reorganization—Second of Two Articles
Mark P. Campbell
T
HIS brings me to a point that I have been
watching and which has been frequently
commented on in the columns of this very
paper, the change of the habits of the American
home life. It seems to me a physical necessity
for every person to spend a very definite amount
of time out-of-doors and this is a large por-
tion of one's daily life. It has been true of the
history of every European country that the
people turn to out-of-doors. I believe that by
nature we were intended to live out-of-doors
and not within doors. When the people worked
in fields and this country was very largely a
farming country and the balance of the people
were employed in railroad construction, new
buildings and one thing or another so that a
relatively small proportion of the community
was within doors in its daily endeavors, it was
but natural that they should stay home in their
hours of leisure. This has now been reversed,
and a very large proportion of our population
is employed entirely within doors, in factories
and offices, and it is natural that when off
duty they take their recreation out-of-doors as
much as possible.
These people in the future are going to have
more money to spend than they had in the
past, due to the growth of our gold supply
through trade balances and California's con-
tribution of some 50 to 75 million dollars an-
nually of gold dust. With our increased pro-
duction facilities in factories through the aid
of machinery, and also the ease with which
foodstuffs and cereals are taken from the fields
through scientific farming and machinery, it is
going to place at the disposal of the individual
more time for leisure. This means boom days
for professional baseball, tennis, for golf, for
horseback riding for the rich, and horseshoe
pitching for the poor, gardens and other forms
of outdoor amusement.
Mr. Davies announces in his latest advertise-
ments that there was paid to his institution in
the year 1926 over $2,000,000 for tree surgery
alone. Think of that as evidence of interest in
the great outdoors! Think of the millions that
must also have been spent for landscape gar-
dening and on country homes! This is a line
of endeavor which will require tools and sup-
plies, and it is in the various distributing organ-
izations that there is an opportunity for those
who wish to withdraw capital while they still
have capital to withdraw from the piano busi-
ness which is now concentrating in the hands
of fewer people with large and economical pro-
duction ability.
However, people still must have homes, and
while they have homes they are going to want
them more complete than they have ever
wanted them before because of their surplus.
And that will mean that they will want pianos.
Some years ago I advised merchants to con-
centrate on the people employed in the auto-
motive industry as prospects because it was a
new line of industry that was opening up to
people who had not enjoyed surplus income in
the past and that would be ready for the piano
market now.
Now for the dealers' problem. There will be
large and small dealers all over the country de-
pending upon the respective abilities of men
as merchants, and the opportunities of fields
of endeavor. But I must deal with the aver-
age.
In each community there will be a dealer for
about every 10,000 people. If you live in a
city of 100,000 people there will be ten dealers
or thereabouts engaged in the distribution of
musical instruments. There will be some who
will be only small phonograph or radio deal-
ers, and some may be very large and complete
music department stores, but that is about the
average the country over. In the average store
the proprietor should be able to earn a very
good salary if he works—and don't forget that
last phrase, as it is important—and about 6 to
8 per cent on his turnover of stock—not ac-
counts, on a well-managed business. In most
cases that means $75,000 to $100,000 worth of
business a year, including side lines.
Of course, in every city there are demands
for several kinds of merchants and all kinds
are necessary to reach all markets. You can-
not maintain a highest quality specialty shop,
ask your customers to select art models, repro-
ducers, and then expect to do a volume of busi-
ness. Neither can you attempt to do a very
low-price special sale business and attract to
your store the highest type of clientele as a
regular volume. You will get the kind of peo-
ple you go after and cater to. Some people
who have been within my acquaintance are not
happy unless they buy everything at wholesale,
and unless some one leads them to believe they
are buying at wholesale they cannot be sold.
I really believe such people are frequently
fooled into paying full retail prices and then
some, but are allowed to believe they have
bought at wholesale. Others will buy at spe-
cial sales only, and if they are caught at the
psychological moment with an advertisement
announcing a special sale they will be sold.
So on down the line—there are many different
ways to merchandise pianos, or any other com-
modity, for that matter.
However, for the dealer who is out to do a
general representative business it is very much
the best way, in my opinion, to maintain one
price and have a firm set of rules for distrib-
uting- pianos. Having established his lines and
his policies, stick to them without wavering
regardless of the alluring tales that may be
fold of other methods of merchandising that are
supposed to produr** great profits. You can't
do all types of business with one organization.
Now to boil down this article on reorgan-
ization, it means the trend of greater consolida-
tion among the manufacturers must continue,
and the dealers must keep the potential market
at its greatest activity by advertising, personal
propaganda in schools, concerts, the elimina-
tion of antiques from circulation, and long time
to pay for a piano. A man's character is the
basis of his credit usually in a piano sale, and
not his financial balance sheet. In fact, in-
creased time to pay for a piano may reduce
the credit risk, whereas short terms may very
seriously hamper him from a credit viewpoint.
As was pointed out to me in a conversation
with a man discussing automobiles recently:
A man buys a $6,000 automobile much in ex-
cess of his ability to pay for, but he buys it
nevertheless. If he is obliged to pay for it
within one year it will financially bankrupt
him, and it will be necessary to repossess the
automobile and sell all his worldly possessions
if the automobile company is insistent on the
payment of the notes. Whereas that same man,
given six years to pay for the automobile, could
very well manage it, pay for it and thus be a
good risk at six years where he would not be
at one year. So it is true of the piano sale;
the additional time is very necessary in the light
of our present highly competitive field.
Kramer Music House
Marks 40th Anniversary
Allentown, Pa., Concern Established in 1887 by
Fred F. Kramer and Represents a Notable
Line of Musical Instruments
ALLENTOWN. PA., October 29.—The Kramer
Music House, at 544 Hamilton street, this city,
celebrated last week the fortieth anniversary of
the establishment of the business by Fred F.
Kramer on October 17, 1887. It was in 1880
that Mr. Kramer entered the employ of a local
music dealer and he remained there seven years
learning the business before launching his own
enterprise, which has prospered continuously to
a point where it is one of the representative
music stores in this section of Pennsylvania.
The company occupies three floors and base-
ment at the Hamilton street address, and repre-
sents a notable line of instruments, including the
Steinway, Hardman, Lester, Laffargue, Schulz,
and other makes of pianos and reproducing
pianos, together with Victrolas, radio receivers
and musical merchandise. Two years ago the
business was incorporated by Mr. Kramer at
which time he took into the corporation his
brother, John T. Kramer, his son, Frederick F.
Kramer, Jr., and Ray J. G. Ritter.
The anniversary celebration was launched by
the issuance of a special section of the Allen-
town Chronicle containing the history of the
company and congratulatory announcements
from the various manufacturers and distributors
with whom the Kramer Music House does busi-
Standard Piano Go. Moves
PHILAHKI.PHIA, PA., October 31.—The Standard
Piano Co., has moved from 1218 West Girard
avenue to new quarters at 1033-35 West Girard
avenue, where the company occupies an attrac-
tive new three-story building.