Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
A READJUSTMENT OF THE MUSIC ROLL BUSINESS.
(Continued from page 3.)
copy that would attract the public in the improvements made in the music rolls—in the possibili-
ties of the player—it would be helpful in every way. It would also create a demand for the better
rolls.
It is conceded that music rolls of an inferior quality render it impossible for the player-
pianists to secure the best results from their instruments. Poor playing invariably follows a poor
music roll, and when we have good music rolls there is no reason why they should not make money
for the men who handle them.
The advertising of music rolls at reduced rates does not increase the profits of the dealer, and
about all the advertising that I have seen in the different papers throughout the land is either music
rolls offered at reduced rates or else an offer to throw in a bunch of rolls with the sale of a player-
piano.
In either case it is a cheap treatment of a product which should hold a high position with the
trade. If handled in a cheap manner it must inevitably show cheap returns.
It is impossible to build an increased demand for a product on a cut-price basis, or by an offer
to give it away with the sale of a player.
It has been my object to create a certain national sentiment on the part of piano merchants
so that they will reorganize their music roll departments and study the music situation with the
same care and thought that they should bestow on any department of their business and it will
pay them handsomely.
There is no reason why this department of the music trade should not pay ample profits, but
it will not unless the subject is treated broadly from an educational viewpoint.
Getting down to brass tacks, what are the piano merchants of the country to-day doing to pro-
mote interest in the sale of music rolls?
By giving away rolls free with the sale of a player-piano are they not lowering their business
standards all the while?
It seems incomprehensible that merchants should cheapen a department of their business which
should pay them a legitimate profit, but, perhaps, the throw-in habit is the result of a legacy which
has been handed down in the piano trade for generations.
The practice began years ago to offer something as an inducement in the sale of a piano. First
it was a stool—a necessity, of course, but why should not the people have paid for it? Then a scarf,
which also should have paid a handsome profit. And now a bunch of music rolls.
Take the stool business alone. The piano merchants through their throw-in methods have lost a
profitable business which has gravitated to the department stores. A stool company which manufac-
tures the highest grade stools and benches disposes of 90 per cent, of its entire output to department
stores, which sell these products at a handsome profit. There is business taken right out of the
music trade through the efforts of those who should have worked to retain it. Unless something
can be done to halt the cheap tendency—the throw-in plan in the music roll business—it will lose
for the piano merchants a profit which, by reason of its position, should assure commensurate re-
turns for the merchants.
The cheapening of a product by advertising it at cut prices, or giving it away, will not operate
toward building net profits for any business.
It is time to cry a halt and remodel the whole music roll plan of
reaching the public.
Every man in the piano trade is interested in seeing a readjust-
ment of the music roll situation upon a profit-paying basis. It can be
done and should be done.
Helps to Get Dealers In Touch With Prospects.
REGULAR feature of the Player Department of The Review
that has won the unqualified endorsement of a large number
A
of dealers in automatic pianos and orchestrions, is the list of new
vaudeville and motion-picture theaters published weekly and which
also forms one of the many interesting features of the Automatic
Player Section each month.
A number of dealers have taken occasion to write to this of-
fice advising us of the assistance the list has proven to them in
keeping in touch with the new theaters in their territory that might
require automatic pianos.
One dealer in the Middle West States credits the list with put-
ting him in touch with three prospects in a single month, two of
the prospects purchasing instruments from him, and although the
third bought from a competing dealer the dealer who wrote might
not have been even in a position to bid had it not been for the
information contained in this list.
Through reading of opportunities for the sale of automatic
pianos and orchestrions as the list appears dealers find many places
listed in their own special territories, whether in Maine or Cali-
fornia, Illinois or Louisiana, where automatic pianos and orches-
trions are required—information that is eminently valuable as it
is timely.