Music Trade Review

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THE: MUSIC TRADE
have built up such an enormous trade as the vast total of their in-
stallment paper signifies. So, really no good reason can be ad-
vanced wliv the installment business in this trade should not be
materially increased. Fresh capital will be forthcoming, and when
the purchase of the installment paper becomes an established fact
many dealers who have not had great capital behind them will press
on with their installment sales with renewed vigor.
T
I1FRF is not a line of manufactured goods in which is blended
the amount of skill, capital, care and mechanical ability which
is evidenced in the finished piano that is sold at anywhere near so low
a price. Go into any furniture store and price some of the simpler
articles of furniture. Compare the retail cost of those with the
prices asked for some reallv good instruments of to-day. When
you figure that counting every part that enters into the construction
of a piano there are nearlv nine thousand separate atoms all con-
tributing to make the musical unit, you can figure what fine adjust-
ment is necessary to create a perfect instrument. And note the prices
at which the '-.ompleted instruments are offered.
The prices, perhaps, will not advance materially, but one tiling is
certain, the retail purchasers in most cases are securing magnificent
values in the instruments which they are purchas : ng to-day.
The ordinary instrument compares favorably indeed with the
high-priced pianos of not so very many years ago. The piano shows
evolution in every particular. In late years there has been a remark-
able advance in the exterior beauty of the finished product. In
fact, the entire casing of the piano has shown wonderful advance.
The art piano has come to stay, and its influence is being felt in all
lines of trade. I Wit the art piano never will sell to the masses be-
cause its cost is prohibitive. The regular styles therefore are the
ones which must appeal to the ordinary purchasers, and they are
offered at prices which surely do not afford their makers a gener-
ous margin of profit.
^ E( ). i \ BEXT said: " \ o one can make a dollar by seeing his
T neighbor lost one. M\ boat will not float any better by reason
of seeing your craft on the rocks. The worst and hardest com-
petitors any of us have either in the wholesale or retail trade are
the firms which do not pay their bills. The honest man who pays his
debts fully cannot compete with the man who fails to do so."
Mr. I'ent at various times has given utterance to some very
clever sayings, but none that embody greater commercial truths than
the above. The man who pays his bills never can meet in competi-
tion the man who does not, and credits cannot be too closelv scanned.
C
'"INHERE are plenty of small dealers whose rating is not large in
J-
the commercial agencies, but whose character is excellent, and
the man who meets his obligations and stands by his word is worthy
of a credit consideration, for when you come to think it over what
greater asset can a business man have than a good character.""
Napoleon, whose shadow even now stands sharply athwart the
whole continent of Europe, appreciated character more than all else,
and lie had the power of penetrating into the minds of men ; he was
as great a psvchologist as he was an accomplished strategist. In
fact, no one has surpassed him in the art of defining the various states
and impulses which impel or restrain men in general, or this or that
individual in particular; what springs of action may be t niched, and
the kind of degree of pressure that may be applied to them. The
central faculty rules all the others, and in the art of mastering man
his genius was found supreme.
It is partly this power of grasping the thoughts and intentions of
others which helped to -make him such a general. Again and again
the point must be insisted upon ; that his victories were not happy
accidents, but the final link in a long chain of reflection, work, knowl-
edge and preparation.
R
ECENTLY a local piano manufacturer called upon The Review
to discuss the best means to obtain trade in Latin America.
He knew that the editor of The Review had traveled in those coun-
tries, and was therefore familiar with the business conditions pre-
vailing in some of the republics south of us.
The whole situation in Latin America may be crystallized in
few words. The bulk of the trade in those countries is in the hands
of the English and German manufacturers, where it is liable to re-
main unless we change our general attitude toward the resident
dealers. Germany and England have gained their enormous trade
in South America by the granting of extensive credits, and until we
REVIEW
change materially our policy there is no good reason to believe that
we can make great inroads upon territory which they have held
securelv for some years.
I
N the piano lines, strictly speaking, we have never prepared just
what the people of those countries were accustomed to pur-
chasing. They desire the small cottage pianos which are made by
many of the cheaper firms abroad, and which are sold at considerably
less than $100 wholesale. These come neatly cased in zinc-lined
cases, and long terms of credit are granted on the same.
There is no doubt but that our almost general refusal to sell
goods abroad on credit is restricting the export of American goods.
That rule was doubtless necessary years ago, but it is not necessary
in these days of cables, mercantile reporting agencies and quick
communication. Report after leport comes in from our consuls to
the effect that British, German and other European exporting houses
are securing trade against us, even in lines of goods wherein Ameri-
can makes are the most popular locally.
T
HOUSANDS of British and German factories are making the
same classes of goods as are being made in American factories.
Orders for such goods, of British or German make, are being placed
away from us simply because the sellers do not insist on payment by
draft against shipments—practically payment in advance of the receipt
of the goods. This is practically true of Mexican and Central and
South American business, 75 per cent, of which should come to us by
reason of geographical contiguity. We are getting about 40 per
cent, of Mexico's import trade, but less than r5 per cent, of that of
Central and South America. Writers in English papers are urging
British exporters to open their credit doors still wider. We have
to face that competition. The foreign buver dearlv loves to buv on
credit, even when he has the money readv to pav cash. The fact
that he can get goods on time is a sop to his individual pride and Irs
national honor. It must be remembered that we want his trade and
money, more than he wants our goods, in preference to those made
in some other country. We have something to get, while he has oiilv
to take what is offered.
/
~T~ V III X k how the American salesman is handicapped abroad, lie
X
goes with his samples into territory new to his house; meets
there the representatives of European houses who have been there
many times before. After hustling and pushing he secures an order;
then broaches his "cash in New York" or draft against bill of lading"
programme, with a European agent beside him offering two or more
months' credit for goods of the same line. What is the result? Too
often the other fellow gets the order.
To sell goods at home we date bills ahead and make all kinds of
extended terms, depending on mercantile agencies and other outside
sources for facts as to the financial standing of the buyer. 1 las not
American internal commerce increased very largely by reason of that
elasticity ?
The same rule will hold good if applied with discrimination to
sales abroad. We are trying to get foreign business from the start-
ing point of making the buyer agree to our terms of "no cash, 110
goods," while he is in possession of the order we want to get, and
which order others are willing to make terms for.
Why not trv it the other wav round for a spell ?
P
1AXO dealers are very much concerned over the repeal by the
last Legislature of this State of Section 1 15 of the Lien Law
which exempts sellers of pianos, organs and other household goods
from recording conditional time contracts, if the contract for the sale
thereof was executed in duplicate and one copy given the purchaser.
The repeal of this section, which went into force September 1.
makes the conditional sale of a piano the same as a chattel mortgage,
and, as stated in last week's Review, it must be duly recorded in the
Register's Office.
This is a verv serious matter, inasmuch as people do not care
to have their private business a matter of public record. Many be-
lieve that if the lien law, as it now stands, is left unamended, it will
be a serious menace to the prosperity of the trade.
The law repealing this section was "sneaked" through without
knowledge of the New York l'iano Manufacturers' Association,
who, of course, would have fought it vigorously. Meanwhile there
is onlv one course now to pursue, and that is to make a strenuous
fight to get Section 115 again placed on the statutes of New York
State at the next meeting of the Legislature,