Music Trade Review

Issue: 1928 Vol. 86 N. 20

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
The Music Trade Review
REVIEW
MAY 19, 1928
It will be well for those dealers attending the convention to
get in touch with some of the Packard men and discuss the system.
The information thus obtained will represent a substantial return
for the cost in time and monev of the visit to New York
Properly Approached, the Public Will
Buy Musical Instruments
(Registered in the U. S. Patent Office)
Published Every Saturday by
Federated Business Publications, Inc.
at 420 Lexington Avenue, New York
President, Raymond Bill; Vice-Presidents, J. B. Spillane, Randolph Brown; Secre-
tary and Treasurer, Edward Lyman Bill; Assistant Secretary, L. B. McDonald:
Assistant Treasurer, Wm. A. Low.
B. BRITTAIN WILSON, Editor
CARLETON CHACE, Business Manager
W. H. MCCLEARY, Managing
Editor
RAY BILL, Associate Editor
F. L. AVERY, Circulation Manager
E. B. MUNCH, Eastern Representative
BOSTON O F F I C E :
JOHN H. WILSON, 324 Washington St.
Telephone: Main 6950
WESTERN DIVISION:
FRANK W. KIRK, Manager
E. J.
NEALY
Republic Bldg., 209 S. State St., Chicago
Telephone: Wabash 5242-5243
Cable: Elbill New York
Telephone: Lexington 1760-71
No. 86
O
May 19, 1928
No. 20
The Packard Selling Method
N several occasions The Review has published articles
regarding the success being met with by the Packard
Music House in building up a sales volume at reduced
cost through the medium of group instruction classes conducted
in Ft. Wayne and neighboring towns. The company has been
carrying on this work for eleven months, and the results are be-
coming steadily more satisfactory as various problems have been
met and overcome. The experiences of this company present a
convincing answer to the question as to whether group instruction
can be made to produce immediate results in sales while building
up a future market for piano distribution at the same time.
The Packard Co. employs no magic, but bases its operations on
sound business methods. The first group instruction classes con-
ducted experimentally proved very satisfactory, but some little
thing lacking to turn public interest into sales was discovered.
The company studied the problem and found the answer. The
result has been a most substantial increase in sales at a saving in
selling cost declared to be in the neighborhood of 60 per cent.
Senate to Investigate
Chain Store Systems
i
Resolution Introduced by Senator Brookhart
Calling for Investigation of This System of
Merchandising
WASHINGTON, D. C, May 16.—A thorough in-
vestigation of the chain store situation in the
United States is to be made by the Federal
Trade Commission, under the terms of a resolu-
tion introduced in the Senate by Senator Brook-
hart of Iowa, and adopted May 12. Introduc-
tion of the measure followed the receipt of com-
plaints that chain stores in various localities
throughout the country were pursuing practices
which placed the independent retailer at an
unfair disadvantage. The demand for an inves-
tigation was also strengthened by recent reports
of mergers of chain store systems, it now being
I
Why Canvassing Is Vital
N an article in The Review last week L. H. Jacobi, of the
Baldwin Piano Co., New York, said regarding canvassing:
"Canvassing is valuable to a piano house in that it brings
new business, extra business—business that will never be brought
into the store in any other way. There is no more relation between
the routine business and the sales secured through canvassing than
there is between selling pianos and selling elephants. The two
ends of the business are as different as night and day."
There is the story in a nutshell, and answers most emphatically
those of the trade who are inclined to belittle canvassing methods
as being too expensive and troublesome for the volume of business
secured by that means. As The Review has pointed out time and
time again, piano selling depends primarily upon contact, and can-
vassing provides the fundamental means for securing contacts
with prospective purchasers. The difficulties complained of are
not to be charged against canvassing, but are rather due to faulty
methods.
Canvassing in one form or another, as is best suited to the
particular territory, is just as necessary as advertising and the
maintenance of warerooms. It has never been so important as at
the present time, when practically every industry is depending upon
visits to the home and the office as a means of getting the first
call on the consumer's dollar. If some piano dealers insist on de-
pending for sales upon those who respond to the advertising appeal
and personal urge and fight their way through a horde of hungry
salesmen to the doors of the piano warerooms, then the sales vol-
ume of the industry is due to take a further drop.
Canvassing is hard work, but properly handled the results will
1>e found to offer full compensation for the extra effort. It is
significant that piano houses who are reporting sales totals that
measure up with or exceed the average usually maintain large out-
side crews. They may be called canvassers or outside salesmen, or
whatnot, but the point is that they are out in the field looking for
the business where it is most likely to be. It is the sales volume
developed by this means that represents the difference between
profit and loss.
estimated that there are some 4,000 systems
with a total of over 100,000 stores.
The Federal Trade Commission inquiry will
be designed to determine the extent to which
recent consolidations have been effected in viola-
tion of the anti-trust laws, the extent to which
consolidations or combinations of such organ-
izations are susceptible to regulation under the
Federal statute, and what legislation, if any,
should be enacted for the purpose of regulating
and controlling chain store distribution.
The commission also will be required to re-
port to the Senate the extent to which the chain
store movement has tended to create a mon-
opoly or concentration of control in the dis-
tribution of any commodity either locally or
nationally; evidences indicating the existence of
unfair methods of competition in commerce or
of agreements, conspiracies or combinations in
restraint of trade involving chain store distribu-
tion; the advantages or disadvantages of chain
store distribution in comparison with those of
other types of distribution as shown by prices,
costs, profits and margins, quality of goods
and services rendered by chain stores and other
distributors or resulting from integration, man-
agerial efficiency, low overhead or similai
causes; how far the rapid increase in the chain
store system of distribution is based upon actual
savings in costs of management and operation
and how far upon quantity prices available only
to chain store distributors; whether or not such
quantity prices constitute a violation of either
the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton
Act, or any other statute, and what legislation
if any, should be enacted witli reference to such
quantity prices.
Tin.' music Moiv of the Karl Shepherd Co.,
Klamath Falls, Ore., of which F. T. Shepherd
is the head, has been closed out and Mr. Shep-
herd will devote his time to other interests.
The Magazine Number of The Review
Including the Musical Merchandise Section
Issues Every Second Week in the Month—Next Issue June 9
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MAY 19, 1928
The Music Trade Review
Rounds Out Fifty Years
in Baldwin Co.'s Service
O. P. Hazzard, for Thirty-seven Years Con-
nected With Louisville Branch of Company,
Honored on Important Business Anniversary
LOUISVILLE, KY., May 10.—On last Saturday,
May 5, O. P. Hazzard rounded out fifty years
of service with the Baldwin I'iano Co. in Cin-
cinnati, an occasion givi-n fitting recognition
"Business in Music
Is Approaching Its Zenith"
By HENRY C. LOMB
President, Musical Merchandise Manufacturers'
Association (Eastern District)
T
O. P. Hazzard
both by the company officials and by employes
of the local office with which Mr. Hazzard
has been connected for thirty-seven of his fifty
years in the piano business. In addition to
tributes from the company Mr. Hazzard re-
ceived many telegrams and letters of congratu-
lation and found his desk piled high with flow-
ers when he arrived at his usual time in the
morning. He also received a number of gifts
including a big easy chair from his associates
in the Louisville office.
Mr. Hazzard joined the Baldwin Co. at the
age of nineteen as shipping clerk and subse-
quently became a salesman. For six years he
was in charge of the company's office in Terre
Haute, Ind., and was then transferred to Louis-
ville, where he has since remained in charge
of the floor staff. Mr. Hazzard's fifty years of
service was commented on in a lengthy article
in the Herald-Post, in which he told of some
of his early experiences in piano selling.
G. M. Tremaine to Write
for Journal of Education
The wide influence that has been gained by
the National Bureau for the Advancement of
Music among school teachers, and the apprecia-
tion that is held for the work of the Bureau,
has again been emphasized in the request made
of C. M. Tremaine, director of tl\e Bureau, by
the Journal of Education, Boston, to map out
for that publication a series of ten articles on
various phases of school music, the articles to
appear once each month during the coming
year. The request followed immediately the
publication of an article on piano classes in
the April 16 number of the Journal, which has
a wide circulation among music supervisors.
HK Convention is to be a gt^at
constructive effort toward the
permanent upbuilding of the mu-
sic industries ;is well as for the im-
mediate improvement of present con-
ditions. In common with many other
industries the path of the music
industry has not, of late, been strewn
with roses. Unlike these other in
dustries, however, it has the immense
advantage of having for its basic
product a commodity which no other
industry has ever had and for which
there is a constant and avid demand,
namely, music. For, in the last analysis,
the final product of the music in-
dustry, the cause for its existence in
fact, is music and nothing else. The
music industries live by and for
music, and conversely without musi-
cal instruments there could be neither
musicians nor music.
Now this basic product, muxic, is,
in principle, at least, already com-
pletely sold to the buying masses.
The appeal of music to all classes of
people is universal and everlasting.
From the cradle to the grave music
accompanies our steps and always
will. The lullabys of childhood, the
martial airs of young manhood, the
uplifting harmonies of maturity and
old age have brought comfort and
inspiration and solace to generations
of mankind, and will continue to be
H. C. Lomb
played and sung to the end of time.
.
.
And. what is even more to be remarked upon is the tact that this public interest
in music has now, through various agencies, reached a point that has never been
even approached in all history. The music business as such may not be what
it should be at the present time, but the business in music is approaching its zenith.
With an assured and exclusive market for the product, the part of wisdom
is not to bemoan a condition which we must know is only transitory, but to bend
every effort to fill this insistent demand for music in the manner we believe it
should be filled, that is by the self-playing of musical instruments.
Here again we have the public with us from the very beginning, provided
that we adopt the proper approach. Correctly urged, there is scarcely any one in
whom the desire to play music as a means of self-expression cannot be instilled.
This subject of inducing a greater personal participation in music is the great
issue before the music industry to-day. At the Convention opportunity will be
given to hear the foremost authorities on this subject of sales-stimulation at the
source of the demand. A great deal has already been accomplished in this direc-
tion among schools and other organizations of young people, much of which
is quite unknown to the rank and file of the industry and perhaps entirely unap-
preciated by them. Come to the Convention and learn of the vast benefits to
be derived from these indirect efforts for promoting {he sale of musical instru-
ments.
Finally there will be leading representatives of other industries present at the
Convention who will tell of the methods and policies that have made these in-
dustries great and prosperous, methods that can be successfully applied to the
music industry also.
Let it not be forgotten that these other industries must be reckoned with in
calculations for the future. If the lessons their successes teach are not heeded,
it is well within the bounds of possibility that in the mad scramble for the public's
dollar, some one of these industries will see the opportunity that exists in the
music field and will appropriate it as its own. With the battle more than half
won, with victory almost within its grasp, will the music industry permit an
outsider to snatch the fruits of victory from its hands? Come to the Convention
and make forever certain against this humiliating outcome.
which was made by S. E. Clark, general man-
ager of Grinnell Bros, and H. S. Stucke, man-
ager of the Toledo branch, will bring the Stein-
way to the John store as leader. Carl Rule,
formerly of the Toledo branch, will assume
charge. Don John, proprietor of the store, will
continue to conduct the phonograph, radio and
band instrument departments.
Grinnell Bros. Take Over
John's Music Store Stock
Receiver for Music House
LtMA, O., May 14.—The rntire stock of pianos
of the John's Music Store, 134 West High
street, this city, has been purchased by Grin-
nell Bros., of Detroit, which firm will conduct
(he piano department in the future. The deal,
CHARLESTON, W. VA., May 12.—On application
of A. T. Simms, the Circuit Court has appointed
L. E. McWhorten, special receiver for the
Simms Piano Co., this city. The receiver is
continuing the business temporarily,
Joe Hiller Corp. Chartered
PITTSBURGH, PA., May 14.—Application
for a
Pennsylvania charter was made on May 14 for
the Joe Hiller Music Corp. of Pittsburgh, by
Joseph Hiller, Evelyn Hiller and George 01-
cott, the incorporators, to engage in the busi-
ness of exploiting, publishing and marketing
original manuscripts of music, and to buy and
sell, import and export sheet music, musical
instruments and musical merchandise. The new
concern will engage in business in ibis city.
Consult the Universal Want Directory of
The Review. In it advertisements are inserted
free of charge for men who desire positions.,

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