Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
foreign trade, says: ' 'Although I am far
behind in deliveries on home orders, I am
paying just as much attention to foreign
trade as ever. I mean to retain my foreign
trade even at a loss, for that will be per-
manent and continuous, while my home
trade will surely suffer from reaction and
depression after the present boom."
These are two illustrations of the proper
view of foreign trade under the present
conditions. Unfortunately, however, too
few of our manufacturers take such a
rational view of the situation. There is a
prevailing tendency to neglect foreign busi-
ness for the time being with the idea that
it can be taken up again when wanted. No
greater mistake could be made, for foreign
trade can only be regained by a slow and
tedious process. When most needed, dur-
ing times of depression at home, it will be
beyond reach.
There may be reasons why any given
concern should confine its energies at home,
instead of seeking an export trade. The
immense population here and its large con-
suming capacity are growing all the while,
and promise for a long time to come to of-
fer a wider market than can possibly exist
for us abroad. Still it is desirable that we
should not only retain the export trade
which we possess already but add to it
whenever possible. In order to do this it
will be necessary to pay close attention to
all competitors, taking care not to under-
rate the progress in development of the
newer markets of the world, and thereby
permit other nations to capture those mar-
kets, to our own exclusion.
We must not depend for knowledge of
conditions in those remote countries upon
the authorities of former years; their prog-
ress needs to be studied every day. There
are people looking for trade opportunities
who are as anxious to get into every new
market that may be opened anywhere on
the globe as land grabbers have been to lo-
cate claims in our own Western States
whenever another Indian reservation was
thrown open to white settlers. We cannot
afford to be indifferent to whoever may be
first in a new field, with the idea that we
are certain to get a foothold there in due
time anyway.
ONLY SUPREME FOR A TIME.
I T is interesting in view of a certain sim-
ilarity existing between the bicycle and
music trade industries to note how the
smaller manufacturers and dealers are
fighting the- bicycle trust. Interesting
because it affords an idea of the modus
operandi which would probably be adopted
if a piano trust, taking in the larger houses,
of course, were ever to become an estab-
lished fact.
The apprehension that a bicycle trust
would monopolize the business and fix pri-
ces to suit itself, seems to obtain no longer.
Representatives of the independent con-
cerns met in Buffalo recently and organized
an immense corporation or business ma-
chine in opposition to the trust in which
over two-hundred-and-fifty manufacturers
are represented and back of which are all
the dealers of the country.
The present trend of events demon-
strates after all that a combination or trust
can only remain supreme for a certain time,
allowing even that it is not inherently weak
by over-capitalization and thereby likely in
time to go to pieces of its own accord.
There are always competent captains of in-
dustry and enough idle capital to enter up-
on a competitive warfare.
We refer to the developments in the bi-
cycle industry because they point the way
to the course which smaller manufacturers
would adopt were a piano trust ever to ma-
terialize. With the aid of the dealers and
salesmen and these great factors, public
opinion and public sympathy, the smaller
manufacturers, banded together, would be-
come a greater power than is imagined at
first thought.
" CHEAPNESS » ON THE WANE.
A GRATIFYING phase of the country's
prosperity is evident in the revulsion
of opinion going steadily on among pur-
chasers all over the country regarding the
more reliable and better classes of mer-
chandize. The popularity of " cheapness"
is on the wane, and many houses who have
felt like catering to this demand are find-
ing it profitable to turn their attention to
better wares. The reports being made by
traveling men all over the country amply
confirm this view of the situation.
To every dealer we would say: "Sell
the best goods you can "—it is a good all-
round slogan to use this fall and hence-
forth. Of course, circumstances must alter
cases, but still the maxim holds good.
Every dealer can be a committee of one
striving to lead his trade and his custom-
ers upward, hence salesmen should be in-
structed not to push cheap goods. They
sell themselves fast enough. Every time
a customer is sold something better than
he or she intended to buy, a clever thing
is accomplished and the standard of the
house is elevated. It frequently takes far
less time and persuasive power to sell a
piano at $350 or $450 than it does at $149.-
99. With the latter a purchaser cannot be
pleased, in fact people are never pleased
with "cheap" instruments, even though
they be at a gift price.
Dealers can, if they will, be a power in
their day and generation. In their busi-
ness "upward and onward" should be the
motto, always trying to cultivate better
and still better things, but by no means
despising the day of the small or the impor-
tance of the little.
Heroic efforts should be made to break
away from low level goods, methods and
habits. The incessant cry of "cheap" this
and "cheap" that seems to be the sole aim
of some houses. Every dealer can make
his house celebrated for the honesty of its
goods, the truth of its newspaper state-
ments, always mindful to give the public a
shade better than is advertised.
Success along these lines is inevitable.
It marks a line of demarcation between the
high level of integrity and the lower plane
of disappointing and misleading methods
of exaggeration.
OUR PREMIUM OFFER.
""THE success of our premium offer of a
Dewey watch to Review subscribers
has exceeded expectations. Dealers,man-
ufacturers and salesmen have eagerly av-
ailed themselves of an opportunity of se-
curing one of the most interesting and use-
ful souvenirs of the Spanish-American war,
and better still have placed themselves on
record as subscribers to this publication.
Our arrangement with the manufacturers
of these watches expired Oct. 14th, but
we have been enabled to secure a sufficient
number to enable us to keep our offer open
for a few more weeks. All who have not
yet availed themselves of this offer, should
do so at the very earliest moment. Re-
member that five dollars secures The Re-
view for one year and a watch which,
apart from its historic value, is a time-
keeper of undoubted merit.
THE TRADE SITUATION.
CXCEPTIONAL activity has marked the
past week in all departments of whole-
sale and retail trade. Indeed it is a good
many years since trade has shown such
activity, or promises such generous re-
wards for the season as a whole. With
many manufacturers business has reached
a point where it is really impossible for
them to accept additional orders with any
certainty of filling them on a given date
Retail trade in New York is in many in-
stances sporadic. On Fifth Avenue, houses
within a few doors of each other differ in
their reports of trade, one.being unusually
busy; the other with a week's total below
the average. All agree however that not
perhaps for the past ten years has their
been such activity in rentals. Almost any-
thing in the shape of a piano can be rented
these days and at fair prices too. Sales
for cash are also another agreeable feature
of the situation. The outlook taken all in
all may be considered a cheering- one.