Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TWENTY-SECOND YEAR.
REVffiV
EDWARD LYMAN BILL,
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
J . B. S P I L L A N E . MANAGING EDITOR.
EMILIE
Executive Staff :
FRANCES
BAUER,
THOS. CAMPBELL COPELAND
WALDO E. LADD
GEO. W. QUERIPEL
A. J. NICKLIN
PnMUftal Every Satnraay at 3 East 14th street, New York
SUBSCRIPTION (including postage). United States, Mexico
and Canada, $2.00 per year ; all other countries, $4.00.
ADVERTISEMENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts a special discount
is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00, opposite reading matter
$75.00.
REMITTANCES, in other than currency form, should be
made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
Entered at the New York Post Office as Second Class Matter.
NEW YORK, DEC. 8, 1900^
TELEPHONE NUMBER, 1745--EIQHTEENTH STREET.
On the first Saturday of each month The
Review contains in its "Artists Department"
all the current musical news. This is effected
without in any way trespassing on the size or
service of the trade section of the paper. It has
a special circulation, and therefore augments
materially the value of The Review to adver-
tisers.
DOES IT PAY?
P\OES the announcement of cut prices in
the piano trade pay?
Probably no city in the country is as rich
in what we may term a cut-price system as
Philadelphia, and does the piano business
in that city compare favorably with other
cities?
There is no city in which piano show
windows are decorated with cut-prices to
the extent that they are in the Quaker
City.
Then again, if we take the advertising
announcements which appear in the col-
umns of the daily press of that city we
find this same condition of affairs exists.
Does it pay ? That is the question.
Judging from results, and after all it is
results which are most eloquent, we are
inclined to the belief that it does not pay;
for piano dealers of Philadelphia cannot
truthfully be said to be in a more healthy
business condition than those of any other
large city. Of course there are some even
in Philadelphia who adhere to dignified
methods of conducting business, but there
are also many firms who desire to give the
impression that they are selling pianos
away below whatthey cost.
We hold that such a course undermines
the belief of the public in piano values and
that the average person figures if he can
buy a piano for $95 or $100, that he surely
ought to buy a magnificent pianistic cre-
ation for a couple of hundred. He cannot;
and the men who are trying to create that
impression in the minds of the public are
committing business suicide.
Pianos are sold, not too high, but too
cheaply, and as a straight business propo-
sition, we do not think it is a good plan
for a merchant to admit that he is com-
pelled to, or does, sell for less than what he
pays for goods. How much better it
would be to have people suppose that it
was a regular policy of Mr. Smith, we will
say, to sell goods at a much lower price
than other stores owing to his facilities for
purchasing, which he could emphasize,
than it was simply to buy pianos and sell
them for less than cost?
One idea in cutting prices, or in making
special prices, is to give the public the idea
of the reasonableness with which one can
sell merchandise. It does not impart to
them any particular knowledge of personal
ability to make close prices when the state-
ment is made that a merchant is selling
below cost. Sometimes a firm overreaches
itself in the endeavor to be constantly
harping upon the fact that it loses money
on any particular line of goods, whether
they are pianos or any other article of mer-
chandise.
In the first place, it is not a good reputa-
tion to gain that one is not making money,
and very often leads to the thought that
business is unsuccessful.
There is too much of a tendency, we
think, for the good of the piano trade in
later years to emphasize the cheapness of
the piano product rather than its goodness.
The element of cheapness does not bring
about satisfactory results in a retail way.
The matter of goodness—that is, quality—
is bound to do this if emphasized forcefully
and intelligently.
The presentation of these matters in a
business sense is of the utmost importance
to the success of a business enterprise, and
to our minds this element of cheapness is
perhaps heedlessly pushed along when it
should be sidetracked and in its place qual-
ity substituted.
Get good pianos, sell them at right
prices, and talk quality—no better word
for the piano merchant to paste in his hat.
Not only paste it there but to refer to it
every day.
THE BUSINESS OUTLOOK.
T H E days between this and Christmas
are the ones in which, in a busi-
ness sense, occurs the loosening of the
purse-strings—the time when people buy
willingly and pay liberally.
To the piano merchant, as well as all
others, the business transacted during the
month of December plays a most import-
ant part in figuring the results of the year's
business. Upon it success largely depends
in making up a satisfactory total for the
year's trade.
Business for the three last weeks of No-
vember was of a somewhat disappointing
character in the three important cities:
New York, Boston and Chicago. How-
ever, the business for the past week pre-
sages well for December, and there is
every reason to believe that a most grati-
fying, as well as satisfactory amount of
holiday trade will be transacted in music
trade circles.
OUR POSTAL FACILITIES.
T H E subject of increased postal facilities
for New York is a matter in which
the business community of this city will
take keen interest. The necessity for en-
larged postal quarters has been apparent
for a long time and it is lioped that meas-
ures providing for a postal convenience
in New York which will be equal to the
needs of our people will be arranged for
at the next session of Congress.
No merchant, publisher or business man
can be found who does not know that the
postal facilities of this city are inadequate
to the demands upon them, and that they
should be increased without delay. Com-
plaints made upon the non-delivery of
mail matter within a reasonable time have
been explained by the department invari-
ably in the statement that they were un-
able to cope with the present necessities
owing to limited space.
New York is in earnest now about better
postal advantages and it is to be hoped
that needed changes will occur within the
near future.
During the past year we have had occa-
sion to make frequent complaints to the
department regarding delay in the early
city delivery of The Review. Our sacks
of mail intended for local subscribers are
always delivered at the Post Office by eleven
o'clock Friday night; and explanations to
our complaints have been invariibly along
the line of inadequate facilities for hand-
ling the vast amount of matter which is
poured in upon the department Friday
night.
This is a poor excuse and the operations
of the Post Office in this city have demon-
strated that whenever additional facilities
have been secured there has been a large
increase in revenues. This is not only the
largest but the best paying Post Office of
the country and the net returns to the
Government run up into millions of dollars.
The cause for complaint should be speed-
ily removed from such an important branch
of the government service.
CASE ARCHITECTURE.
T H E new year promises to bring about
no radical changes in piano-case de-
signs. There is a marked tendency to-
wards plainer cases, and the Colonial styles
are becoming more and more popular.
When we compare these with the heavily
embellished cases of a few years ago, we