September 12, 1925.
PRESTO
POWER OF WINDOW
SHOW IN SALES
KURTZMANN
Grands—Players
Ability of Window Dresser to Correctly De-
vine Point of View of Prospects Strong
Means in Creating a Winning Dis-
play of Music Goods.
Manufactured by
C. KURTZMANN & CO.
ARGUMENT OF ROLLS
How Lcng and Varied Lists of Reproducing Piano
Music in Kansas City Store Incited Unusual
Interest in Public.
Factories and General Offices
526-536 Niagara Street
BUFFALO, N. Y.
STRICH & ZEIDLER, Inc.
GRAND, UPRIGHT and PLAYER
AND
HOMER PIANOS
740-742 East 136th Street
NEW YORK
BRINKERHOFF
Grands - Reproducing Grands
Player-Pianos
and Pianos
The Line That Sells Easily
and Satisfies Always
BRINKERHOFF PIANO CO.
OFFICES, REPUBLIC BLDG.
209 State Street
CHICAGO
The Steppe, Marcelius and Edouard Jules Pfao9
manufactured by the
HEPPE PIANO COMPANY
are the only pianos In the world with
Three Sounding Boards.
Patented In the United States, Great Britain
France, Germany and Canada.
Liberal arrangements to responsible agents only*
Main Office, 1117 Chestnut St.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
To make lookers into customers is the job of the
man or woman who plans the displays in the show
windows. Women are included in the sharing of
the responsibility because music dealers in many
places have seen the wisdom of enlisting the fair, and
admittedly tasteful, sex in the scheme to allure the
transient prospect with arguments provided in win-
dow displays. The trade papers have had a lot of
interesting things to say for instance about the young
lady art director of the Wiley B. Allen Co., San
Francisco.
Women have not only an instinctive sense of taste
in arranging the goods in a display, but also have the
advantage which the woman's point of view gives
them. Perhaps the woman window dresser analyzes
her own mind when she plans a window attraction
of music goods. She knows that many customers
will not buy until they have visited several stores.
In the sales in a big city music store a great many
customers are of the kind known as "transients."
never appearing on a prospect list previous to their
entering the store ready to be waited upon. They
are customers, very often, converted from the looker
stage by the window displays.
The Ingenious Appeal.
The window dresser uses objects where the adver-
tising man uses type and pictures. The plan may be
to forcibly direct attention to the piano, or other
musical instrument, or may be to influence the pos-
sible customer with the details of some merits in the
commodity shown. The latter is based on demon-
strating the selling points printed in newspaper ad-
vertisements and circulars, and catalogs distributed
by the dealers.
The good window display working on the eyes of
beholders creates desire to buy in efficacious way.
The managers of the talking machine department of
the Dreher Piano Co., Cleveland, O., and in the same
sections in Grinnell Bros., Detroit, and Lyon &
Healy, Chicago, attribute the wonderful sales of
portable talking machines this summer to the con-
vincing object lessons of the delights of music in the
camp, on the yacht, in the mountains, and on the
fishing trip, made in show windows at intervals since
early spring.
Fixing the Credit.
In the talking machine department of Sherman
Clay & Co., San Francisco, an inquiring salesman dis-
covered that the origin of the desire to buy, in most
instances, was in one of the displays showing the uses
of the portable machine in the out-of-doors. The dis-
plays were the most powerful aid to the seasonable
advertising for the little instruments.
Surprise for Manager.
The sales manager of the reproducing piano de-
partment in the J. W. Jenkins Sons' Music Co.,
Kansas City, Mo., was pleasantly surprised at the
great number of inquiries about the instruments dur-
ing last July, a period during which it has always
been hard to stimulate interest of any kind to an
unusual degree in the Missouri city. A good percen-
tage of sales resulted from the inquiries, but it was
the great number of inquiries that set the manager
looking for a direct cause.
Displays of reproducing pianos in the show win-
dows had been the rule, week in and week out, pre-
viously, and ingenious devices of the window display
artist had shown the merits of construction in con-
vincing detail. The shows had always brought to the
department an average number of interested people,
ADAM SCHAAF, Inc.
1
""mNos "
3
Established
GRANDS AND UPRIGHTS
Reputation
13
ft^
and Quality Since 1873
FACTORY
OFFICES AND SALESROOMS
1020 So. Central Park Ave.,
319-321 So. Wabash Ave.,
Corner Fillmore Street
CHICAGO, ILL.
of course, but the over-the-normal number in hot
July was easily explained when he reviewed the char-
acter of the displays from January to July 1.
Music Rolls Win.
About the latter date the window dresser made
the music prepared for the reproducing pianos shown
a most prominent feature of the window displays.
Previous to that the available list of fine music was a
mere incident of reproducing piano ownership pre-
sented to onlookers. About the first week of July,
however, the window dresser picked upon the wealth
of music, standard, classical and popular, as the main
point in his reproducing piano display and his clever
featuring was an appeal to lovers of music of all
degrees of taste and refinement. That the repro-
ducing piano could do such wonderful things in play-
ing had been well impressed in previous displays; this
time he gave prominence to the music provided by
the manufacturers as the means to perform the won-
derful things. 'The amazing number of people who
flocked to the department to inquire further about
the instruments showed the value of the show win-
dow appeal.
Helps the Salesmen.
Of course quite a number of people visiting the
reproducing piano department were the kind which
looks elsewhere before buying. The clever salesman
knows the futility of "rushing" that kind of customer.
At the Kansas City big music house the salesmen,
devining the reason of the visit, were ready to utilize
the interest aroused by the character of the window
display. They presented the callers with the alluring
catalogs of music for the instruments with whose
musical merits they already were familiar. The lists
pressed home the argument of the show windows.
SOME OF THE LATE CHANGES
IN RETAIL PIANO TRADE
Changes, Renewals and New Enterprises in Different
Parts of the Country.
The Houston Piano Co will open in the New Hafer
Building, Council Bluffs, Iowa, this week.
Chestnut Bros. Music Co., 108 West Oklahoma
avenue, Guthrie. Okla., will move this week to 11.3
South Division street, that city.
I. W. Guisinger has succeeded G. W. Kennan,
music dealer, at Springdale, Ark.
F. M. Turpin will open a music store next week in
the Long Building at Springdale, Ark.
Howard W. James has opened a radio store at
Putnam, Conn., with a full line of Radiolas and kin-
dred lines.
The Woonsocket Phonograph Co. moved last week
to 115 North Main street, Woonsocket, R. T.
Mansfield Music Co. is the new music store in the
Richardson Hotel, Greenwich, Ohio.
The Bensberg Music Shop has opened at West
Main and Cleveland streets, El Dorado, Ark.
FEATURES CABLE MIDGET.
The Cable Piano Co., Toledo, O., recently ex-
hibited pianos and phonographs at the Summer Pure
Food Show. The Cable Midget piano this week
occupies a window in a tie-up with recent trade paper
advertising of The Cable Company, illustrating eight
places where the piano may be used to advantage.
CAFE HANDLES PIANOS.
The American Cafe, Martin, Tenn., has taken over
the agency for the Edison phonograph and piano.
They have a good stock of sheet music and will
handle the latest sheet music at all times. This ar-
rangement followed the moving of the Fowler Music
Store to Tiptonville.
HOLDS ANNUAL OUTING.
D. H. Holmes Co., Ltd., Canal street. New Or-
leans, following a regular custom at this department
store, observed August 22 as a holiday for the em-
ployees. This was the seventeenth annual outing
and was held at Biloxi, Miss.
S. Ernest Philpitt & Son, 444 Central avenue, St.
Petersburg, Fla., is featuring the latest Victor rec-
ords and finest models in Victrolas.
RADLE TONE The Musician's Delight
Whenever yoti hear the name RADLE you immediately
think of a wonderful tone quality, durabili y and design.
Musicians insist on RADLE
New Adam Schaaf Bufldlnfi,
F. RADLE, Inc.
Est. 1850.
609-11 W. 36th St., New York City
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