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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, JULY,
the mark-up of 100% versus the dept. store
mark-up of from 50% to 75%, but forced to
take more profits A C maintenance of list
prices when demanded.
T is arithmetic to say that out of 5,000
persons, 2 are ready to buy a piano
without being loved up. So if 10,000
persons go thru the Macy piano de-
partment a day, and they do, then the sales
of 5 pianos a day (1,200 for the year) is
simplicity in itself, and also is a master job
of piano selling — a valuable additional,
sales power to an industry in the process of
increasing production.
(1940 sales = 1
piano per 1,000 persons - 136,000 instru-
ments). Let's "review" this: all pianos are
plainly marked, and the buyer can't get a
nickel off (time and expense of all the ware-
room horse trading via customers, salesmen
and managers); not 1c for any trade-in (all
the time consumer in dickering saved); not
one change in the 10 down payment—either
that or else—; benches are additional, or the
customer sits on the arm of a sofa; terms
optional according to the Macy schedule —
no custom made terms. Other department
stores follow the general plans of Macy, but
we don't know of one so brutally frank in
both advertising and selling.
I
ROM these words, dealers can take
a bit or a bite, and perhaps cut down
on the non-essentials of piano sell-
ing as they are now doing. They can
certainly cut out the turnover system, and
part of the whispering between customers,
salesmen and managers, as well as fictitious
allowance for trade-ins, just to get the sale.
People who criticize department store piano
selling, do so rather loosely, with no ade-
quate comparison between the policies of
each. I suspect, if anyone can object to
competition in the selling of pianos, it is the
department stores who would be justified at
deploring the competition of piano dealers,
F
for the former never know just what they are
competing against from piano dealers, but
the latter know on sales scraps from dept.
stores. I can name 34 department stores
whose rules and regulations of business con-
duct are constructive factors of good piano
selling, for no small group can sell 20,000
pianos a year without using great skill. May-
be, we are on the wrong track, thinking that
being experts on the use of bicarbonate of
soda because of eating everything, is better
than gaining the proper knowledge of what
and how to eat and not knowing that there is
such a thing as bicarbonate of soda.
H
ARDLY an old-time piano dealer
in America exists who won't feel
as if a friend is "home" on the
announcement that K o h I e r &
Campbell are in the piano business with both
feet, with a substantial factory to make thou-
sands of pianos. Headed by Julius White
son-in-law of the late Charles Kohler, for
two decades a Kohler & Campbell associate,
and one who lived within and thru the years
of Kohler Industries' sensationl career, all
can feel sure that the traditions of the past
are included in the formula of the industry's
"new" piano manufacturer. Needing no ad-
ditional financial gains for himself, the at-
titude of Julius White in shouldering the
burdens of sizeable piano promotion is a
double tribute-one to himself for the Amer-
ican spirit of adding to employment, busi-
ness volume, taxes and the progress of
American industry, and the other, to the
piano business being so well regarded that
it warrants the devotion of such a distin-
guished gentleman. "In HocSigno Vinces"
to Kohler & Campbell.
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
Only trade paper in the piano business awarded tive medals tor "the best"
Established 1879, and published monthly by Henderson Publica-
tions, Inc., at Radio City, 1270 6th Ave., New York, N. Y., U.S.A.
Carleton Chace, Executive Editor. 1 year $2. 2 years, $3. Also
publishers of Radio Television Journal, Musical Merchandise, Parts