Music Trade Review

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Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
VOL. LXV. No. 22
T
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Dec. 1, 1917
8In
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ft* 1
«2.00 Per
HEY are eliminating patch pockets from coats, and inside pockets from vests, to save cloth. They
are inaugurating meatless days and substituting syrups for sugar to save food. They are using paper
and composition in shoes to save leather, and yet there are piano merchants who continue to tempt
fate by giving with a piano or a player-piano, sold at close to ante-bellum prices, cabinets, stools,
scarfs, music rolls, etc., enough almost to represent the entire furnishings of a room.
In other words, while manufacturers are worrying- over the tremendous advances in the cost of materials
and the additional burden that the new war taxes will place on them through various channels, and are
endeavoring to keep the overhead down in order that as little of the burden as possible be passed on to the
dealer, and by him to the customer, the disciple of the "throw in" goes merrily on his way.
Music roll cabinets have advanced materially in price. Music rolls have gone up in many cases. Bench
manufacturers are asking and getting more for their products, as are the makers of scarfs, and yet one can
hardly scan a daily paper without seeing an advertisement announcing that one or all of the articles are given
away free to every purchaser of a piano or player.
Even in normal times the "throw in" habit is to be condemned, as being extremely unbusinesslike. It indi-
cates to the sophisticated that an abnormal price is being charged for the piano or the player itself, or that the
instrument requires a lot of free gifts behind it to overcome any lapses in quality. This may be a radical view,
but there is bound to be a suspicion when there is too much given for nothing.
In times like these the "throw in" practice is really dangerous because it represents an increased
expenditure on the part of the dealer that is not always covered in his calculations of selling expense and profits.
There is no line of trade that has not endeavored recently to eliminate every unnecessary item of expense, shaving
off here and there, and cutting waste to a minimum. It may be that a stool is a necessary and accepted adjunct
to a piano, and a bench and a dozen music rolls to a player-piano, but certainly scarfs and cabinets are articles
that the retailer can well forego giving away. Two dozen music rolls, free, which some retail concerns con-
tinue to advertise, is overdoing it, for a half dozen rolls (even if this is necessary) will serve to show what the
player can do, just as well as four times that number.
If a purchaser desires extra laces for his shoes, or tires for his automobile, or a cabinet for his talking
machine, or sheet music for a piano, he must, and expects to, go into the open market, and buy these addi-
tional items, yet some piano merchants proceed to advertise and give away with their instruments about
everything that can be considered as being usable in any sense with those instruments.
If the trade will come to a realization of the waste that is represented in "throw ins," there may be a
reversal of form that will enable some piano merchants to discount their notes instead of asking for extensions.
The inconsistency of the "throw in" idea at present lies in the fact that the piano merchant is frequently
inclined to protest when asked to pay a 5 per cent, or 10 per cent, increase in the wholesale price of his
instruments, but doesn't say a word when the customer takes out of the store with his instrument free
accessories which equal in cost the increased price asked for by the manufacturer.
What is needed now is the cultivation of salesmanship and public understanding of piano values. The
first requires the ability to make the purchaser buy the piano or player-piano without extras and at the price
quoted. The second means that the public must be educated to the fact that the piano or player has a definite
value, and is worth what is asked for it, without several dollars 1 worth of paraphernalia free to cover any
possible overcharge.
Every day the "throw in" habit is persisted in means that much more added to the cost of doing business,
and just so many dollars in cash taken from the profits. It is about time the trade woke up to this fact.