PRESTO
PRESTO
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT 407 SOUTH DEAR-
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partments. Cable Address (Commercial Cable Co.'s Code), "PRESTO," Chicago.
Entered as second-class matter Jan. 29, 1896, at the Post Office, Chicago, Illinois,
under Act of March 3, 1879.
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ness notices will be indicated by the word "advertisement" in accordance with the
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Presto will be made known upon application. Presto Year Book and Export issues
have the most extensive circulation of any periodicals devoted to the musical in-
strument trades and industries in all parts of the world, and reach completely and
effectually all the houses handling musical instruments of both the Eastern and West-
ern hemispheres.
Presto Buyers' Guide is the only reliable index to the American Pianos and
Player-Pianos, it analyzes all instruments, classifies them, gives accurate estimates
of their value and contains a directory of their manufacturers.
Items of news and other matter of general interest to the music trades are in-
vited and when accepted will be paid for. All communications should be addressed to
Presto Publishing Co., 407 So. Dearborn Street. Chicago, III.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1920.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PRESTO IS ALWAYS GLAD TO RECEIVE NEWS OF THE
TRADE—ALL KINDS OF NEWS EXCEPT PERSONAL SLANDER
AND STORIES OF PETTY MISDEEDS BY INDIVIDUALS. PRESTO
WILL PRINT THE NAMES OF CORRESPONDENTS WHO SEND IN
"GOOD STUFF" OR ARE ON THE REGULAR STAFF. DON'T SEND
ANY PRETTY SKETCHES, LITERARY ARTICLES OR "PEN-PIC-
TURES." JUST PLAIN NEWS ABOUT THE TRADE—NOT ABOUT
CONCERTS OR AMATEUR MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, BUT
ABOUT THE MEN WHO MAKE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND
THOSE WHO SELL THEM. REPORTS OF NEW STORES AND
THE MEN WHO MAKE RECORDS AS SALESMEN ARE GOOD. OF-
TEN THE PIANO SALESMEN ARE THE BEST CORRESPONDENTS
BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY LIKE TO READ AND HAVE
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FINDING OUT WHAT IS "DOING" IN
THE TRADE IN THEIR VICINITY.
SEND IN THE N E W S -
ALL YOU CAN GET OF IT—SPECIALLY ABOUT YOUR OWN
BUSINESS.
TALK PIANOS, NOT PRICES
There is further evidence of the kind that "'can't lie" in this issue
of Presto. It is the evidence that is fortified by figures. It shows
some of the prevailing costs of supplies as compared with the cost
oi the identical parts several years ago. But, interesting and con-
clusive, as the figures are, as showing why the piano dealers can not
expect wholesale prices to drop very soon, they are not the best kind
of ammunition to employ in making sales.
As a matter of fact, the better plan is to forget all about prices
ac the factories when a retail sale is in progress. Fix the margin of
fair profits and stick to the figures religiously, (iet away from the
worn-out system of making prices and then permitting the prospect
to do the selling at his own price. That was the way many piano
sales were made in the days when competition had not been regu-
lated, or softened, by the associations which now exert a wholesome
influence almost everywhere. That was the way the local animosities
were fostered and the dealers robbed of their profits. For when com-
petition became "fierce" the price cutting began and discretion was
blown to the winds.
Today there are retailers who seem to think only of what they
consider too-high prices. They neglect no opportunity to tell their
customers that pianos have kept pace with other things and gone
steadily upwards in cost. And in that way they remind their cus-
tomers that there may come a time when things will drop again
and actually many people may follow that suggestion to the conclu-
sion that the better way is to defer the purchase until the drop comes.
There are countless people who, for the time being, see only the
money side of the question. That they are denying themselves the
delights of a musical instrument, and its refining influences, does not
seem to occur to them. In other words, piano buyers are human
beings and they only need a suggestion to bring about a stampede.
Therefore when a piano salesman has a prospect his better way
is to let the price question alone and stick to the piano itself. In
December 4, 1920.
other words, talk piano and not prices. The customer will probably
have something to say about the latter, and it will not be necessary,
even then, for the salesman to go over the problem of the high cost
of anything. He has a fine instrument to sell. He knows what it is
worth. Probably the customer really thinks it is worth still more.
And if the piano is a good one the customer is probably right in that.
For only a few pianos are sold for as much as they are worth to the
buyer. And it is so seldom that a piano dealer retires from business
independently rich that it seems a mystery that anyone can even
vaguely suspect that prices in this trade have ever been high enough.
In some lines of business it is easily possible for the retailer to
cut prices on some item in his store without making a hole in his
profits. Even if he is foolish enough to give away some more or less
inconsequential article, he may be only doing a bit of advertising.
And, even so, he is doing no more than the piano dealers used to do
when they presented watches, coupons, stools and scarfs with every
sale or, often, before any sales had been made. In business things are
not always just what they seem, no matter how much we may think
they should be so. And a cut in prices of any article of trade need
not mean that everything else is about to take a tumble. When the
bakers take a cent off the price of bread, no one expects to buy mink
furs any lower. And when men's socks are sold at a "reduction sale"
no one thinks that pianos are equally in line for the cut prices. The
baker may have been asking too much, or he may be shrinking the
size of his loaf. The haberdasher may so adjust things as to make
up the difference in the profits of his shirts, collars and neck-ties.
But the piano dealer can neither shrink his players and grands nor
equalize by swelling the size of his installment interest. He must
sell at the price justified by the manufacturers' figures and the added
sum to be adjusted by the needs of his business as proportioned to
the number of instruments he sells. In this, too, piano selling differs
from other lines of trade. It is here that the problem of price stand-
ardization in the retail trade is hard to solve and to settle.
But never is there any good reason for talking high prices to a
piano prospect unless the subject is broached by the customer, and
then it should be made subservient to the piano itself. In other
words, always talk pianos and not prices.
NO CANCELLATIONS
From time immemorial the bad habit of cancelling orders has
been a sore spot in the piano business—in most lines of business.
And the custom had become so much a menace that several very
large wholesale concerns deemed it necessary to notify their cus-
tomers that it would no longer be tolerated. They declared that the
"integrity of business" demanded that the custom cease. And it will
cease in several lines of trade. What about the piano trade?
In times past it was very common for traveling salesmen to send
in orders and before the manufacturers could make acknowledgment
they received notice of cancellation. Perhaps as soon as the sales-
men had left the stores the weak-kneed merchants reconsidered and
sent out the countermands. They did not stop to consider what it
might mean to both the manufacturers and their salesmen. They did
not care that the latter had called, and urged the claims of the in-
struments they represented, at considerable cost in time and money.
They did not take into account the fact that but for their orders,
taken by the salesmen in good faith, some other local dealer might
have done the same thing and have treated the obligation with better
fairness. They thought only of their own convenience and mude
their countermand as if there could be but one side to the trans-
action.
There is nothing fair in such a transaction. The piano deal
who gives an order should not be guilty of such a breach of businej
integrity. He should have given deeper consideration to the rm
ter before giving the order. And if it was given to a traveling saj
man, the breach is the wider if a countermand follows without s<
very special reason, and it is not easy to think of a good reason 1
cancelling an order given in good faith. It is a violation of the rij
of the salesman which may lead to misunderstanding more disast
than mere money loss. It may even lead to rupture of relatiorj
tween an ambitious employee and his employer.
There is another phase of this question, however, in wlj
traveler at one time drew upon him the weight of the manuj
annoyance and the dealer's mild discredit. For there, ^
crept into the trade a habit of forcing orders based upoj
derstanding that the countermand might be made if a cj
or heart took place within a stipulated time. And the £
frequent enough to cause the countermand. Or possiij
the dealer to do some "shopping" w-hen the next travej
representing a rival house. Then the inducement of
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