Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
PLAYER SECTON
NEW YORK, JULY 28, 1917
The Price Increases Which Have Been Made in the Player Industry Should
Cause Dealers to Feature Instruments of Quality Stronger Than Ever Be-
fore—The Necessity for Promoting Active Buying at the Present Time
Whilst the retailers in the piano business are
complaining about the high prices of the goods
they have to sell, one very seldom hears any-
body making the rather obvious suggestion that
the way to side-step high wholesale cost is to
boost retail price. In short, if your goods cost
you more, then do what the corner grocer
does; put up the price to the ultimate con-
sumer!
This Player Section is run neither by alarm-
ists nor by persons whose acquaintance with the
selling of player-pianos is confined to an oc-
casional look-in through the windows of a store.
Per contra, the writer and his colleagues ap-
proach their problems through the most prac-
tical of gateways and talk, usually, only about
such things as they understand.
Therefore,
what follows will, let us hope, be taken with
at least the seriousness that alone can make it
worth while.
An Erroneous Idea
Whenever the suggestion is made that the
experience or the ideas common to and found
successful in any other lines of business might
also be applied to the selling of player-pianos,
inevitably one is met by the reply that the
player-piano business is extremely peculiar; so
peculiar, in fact, that no rules proper to the
conduct of any other kind of salesmanship may
be held to apply to it. If one persists, how-
ever, one usually finds that the meaning of this
statement is that one has to persuade the cus-
tomer to buy a player-piano; and that there-
fore the sale, in most cases, becomes mainly a
matter of the prices and terms whereby the
deal may be consummated; the theory of the
customer supposedly being that the important
thing is, not whether he really wants the in-
strument, but whether he can afford to make
the monthly payments.
1 f a true state of affairs were thus pictured,
one might well despair of the player-piano busi-
ness; but in fact this is not so. If we can only
sell player-pianos because they are easy to buy
—then plainly the player-piano is not worth
mr.ch. Yet we all know that this is not the
case at all.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that some
such feeling is at the bottom of most of the
retail methods in vogue to-day.
Happily, a
better belief in the merits of the player-piano
is growing among the dealers, and we see to-
day more really constructive advertising of true
merits and advantages than ever before. But
there is one point on which as yet the trade
has not waked up; a point of the utmost im-
portance at the present time.
That point relates to the question of price.
If one were to take the trouble to read all
the advertising of player-pianos published in
any one day "throughout the country, it is safe
to say that one would find the greater number
of the propositions to be urged, firstly, on the
score of low price, and only secondly on that
of any particular points of merit. In a word,
the player-piano business to-day is in the con-
dition of being a "price business."
The Rising Cost
It costs more to-day than it ever did to build
a player-piano. The process of cost raising
does not appear likely to be checked for some
time to come, and there is little doubt that the
lower priced players must either be brought up
to a proper figure or else must be made even
more cheaply than they are being made now.
Yet, if one thing is more evident than another,
it is that there is no profit in selling the really
cheap player. For the case is even worse than
that of the really cheap piano. As has been
shown over and over again, the cheap piano does
not in practice inv.olve any serious service cost
in its overhead selling debit. A straight piano
is not very much used by the ordinary family,
and even cheap construction will hold to-
gether a long time when there is no critical
taste to be consulted as to tone and touch. But
the player-piano is an altogether different prop-
osition. It is used, and used pretty continual-
ly; especially during the first year of possession.
Therefore, it is under a double disadvantage;
for the player action will wear out a cheaply
constructed piano in a relatively short time,
while itself will by no means stand up under
the conditions of steady and unskilled use.
Therefore, the sale of a cheap player-piano
involves always along with it a more or less
serious charge for service, which is an
euphemistic way of saying that it costs a good
deal in the way of tinkering by the trouble man
to keep a cheap player satisfactory; which means
to keep it sold.
"Not Worth the Candle!"
Therefore, from every point of view it would
seem that the game of pushing and selling cheap
players is hardly worth the candle; save only
from the standpoint of the price bait, which is
also the terms bait, and which can be dangled
in front of trade financially irresponsible and
for that reason ready to take on any time prop-
osition that looks desirable and classy.
"Go the Whole Hog!"
Seeing, then, that the wholesale cost is in
time going to drag the retail price along with
it up higher, why should it not be a good thing
to make a resolution to go the whole hog from
now on; and begin to discard, as fast and as
much as possible, the whole cheap player prop-
osition in favor of something better?
Perhaps it is easier to talk than to do, but
one thing is sure; in present-time conditions,
there is not much money at the best in selling
the cheap stuff, and with the cost of doing
business so high, it is very unlikely that in
reality any profit at all worth talking about
is to be found in such lines of goods.
Not Hard Times
But there is a stronger and more positive
argument. The times are not hard times. The
cheap player, like the cheap anything else, is
essentially a hard times proposition. When the
people have little money to spend on anything
unconnected with actual food and housing, they
must be stimulated towards buying by induce-
ments held out in the shape of prices and terms;
and the dealers must carry the resulting load;
feeling that it is better to do this than not to
do any business at all. But the worst of this
is that when the hard times have passed away,
as they always do, the public has been educated
nicely into expecting a class of business favor
which was only intended for special occasions,
and which is essentially unhealthy. It is al-
ways harder to boost than to depress prices
where a monopoly does not actually prevail.
Or, vice versa, it is easy to put prices down;
but not so easy to get them back again.
Now, at the present time we are having na-
tional business activity on a large scale. Let
us not be deceived on this point. There may
be irregularities in special lines. In fact, ther?
are such irregularities. But where one line if!
temporarily depressed, another is proportion 5 -
ately exalted; and the aggregate continues to
grow. We must not allow our vision to be dis-
torted by looking through the reducing-glass of
our own local or trade conditions.
"Never So Many Good Prospects"
We are, to repeat, in a national condition
where much money is being paid out to labor
and where great activity in all lines of business
prevails. There were, in the words of Mr. Le-
Cato, never so many good player prospects as
there are now. Is it not obvious that the time
is here to push with our hardest for the better
sort.of player-pianos?
It seems to the writer that the one biggest
idea which a music merchant can have to-day
is the idea of making the most out of the pres-
ent abnormal conditions. Be assured that they
will not change suddenly. We notice an es-
(Contimicd on page 5)