Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
MUSIC TMDE
PLAYER SECTION
NEW YORK, JULY 27, 1918
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Instead of the War Being a Destroyer of Business, the Progressive Music
Dealer Can Find Many Ways Whereby He Can Increase His Sales by Linking
Up His Business With Some Phase of Activity Created by War Conditions
It is certainly not illegitimate, we are sure, to
turn the war to good account. At the same
time, it might as well be remembered that most
of the old cheap tricks that used to go down with
the public would not have a moment's chance
now. The writer can remember how in the
war with Spain the flag of the United States
was misused by a type of "patriot" who would
not dare to work similar games to-day. The
uniform of Uncle Sam is to-day regarded as a
vestment of sacrifice and service. The law and
public opinion alike protect it from desecration.
A great New York newspaper, during the Span-
ish War, had the effrontery to advertise a forth-
coming Sunday Supplement, devoted to the
United States Navy, by a street procession of
fake sailors dressed in navy uniforms, correct
to the last point, carrying rifles and equipped
as if for active service. No such monkeying
with the uniform, the flag or the service would
for a minute be permitted to-day.
Clean Schemes
But that does not alter the fact that there
are a thousand and one ways in which clever
merchants, intent on selling player-pianos dur-
ing these warlike times, can utilize the current
of public thought for their own advantage,
whilst doing something perhaps"for the soldiers
and sailors as well. Indeed, if one is to get up
any special merchandising excitement just now
in any line save lady's clothing it is almost es-
sential to have some way of leaning on the war,
as it were, so much are people's thoughts and
feelings bound up with the army and navy. Yet
it is really not hard, when you stop to think of
it, to find all kinds of ways in which the music
business in general and the player business in
particular may be hooked up to the war-thought.
Player-Pianos in Camps
One of the great desires of all soldiers and
sailors on service is for music, as we all know.
The exact requirements, of course, vary very
considerably. At the great training camps there
is plenty of room for player-pianos in the huts,
and some of the organizations which are main-
taining these huts are equipping them with play-
er-pianos. But the ordinary small dealer can-
not get in on contracts like these. Still, it
might as well be remembered that every player-
piano needs music and that there will never be
too many, in fact, probably never enough, music
rolls for each instrument. That is one point.
The Portables
Another point is that the individual soldier in
the camps can always use a large number of the
portable instruments, such as mandolins, gui-
tars, banjos and other small goods of the sort.
Then there is always sheet music and song
books, talking machines and records.
Now, suppose we try to see what can be done
to turn to account these camp wants of indi-
vidual musical instruments and music. Many
mothers, sisters and wives will be only too happy
to take the suggestion that small musical goods
are welcome and also available for the soldiers
and sailors of the training camps. How can
such be hooked up with the player-piano?
A Canny Scheme
One way, it would seem, would be to advertise
that second-hand instruments of all kinds would
be received, put in repair, and sent to any desig-
nated recipients, without any charge at all, if
brought in by persons desiring to purchase a
player-piano; and that such persons, then, in
consideration of their patriotic action, would be
offered a liberal allowance on such turned-in
instruments, as part payment on player-pianos.
We should not in the least advocate, however,
any deal which could in itself mean a cheapen-
ing of the player-piano as to terms or price
just now. But it is always possible to offer
something special, as, for instance, the liberal
allowances on second-hand instruments, making
a point to see that only persons who are actual-
ly bringing in instruments for repair and trans-
mission to the camps should have the privilege
of obtaining such allowances. In this way, the
patriotic nature of the deal is preserved, while
the merchant, if he be careful not to let himself
be frightened into thinking that some very spe-
cial low terms must be given, will make a rea-
sonable profit.
But Beware!
But it must be pointed out that the question
of keeping up the terms is just now paramount,
and that with .the present uncertainty in manu-
facturing and the necessity for getting better
terms from the merchant the latter must stiffen
his back and his terms accordingly.
A Small Goods Drive
A second club of the same sort might be
opened as follows: Suppose that the merchant
visit the nearest camp to his city, if he be near
one such where the local draft are in training,
and find out from them what they would best
like for their battalion in the way of a musical
instrument; whether a lot of rolls, a bunch of
plectrum instruments, some talking machines
and records, or whatever it is. Then let him
put on at home a special subscription sale, to
buy these goods. A list would be made up noting
each item called for. Every person who will
buy one item on the list can have his or her
name attached to it and have it sent free to
its destination. Then that same person can be
asked to "sell" the purchase back to the mer-
chant at a liberal proportion of the purchase
price, payable in allowance on a player-piano,
while the purchase itself is sent forward to the
soldier or sailor for whom it is intended.
Music rolls, sheet music, etc., can be included
within such a scheme as this, of course, pro-
vided that the total amount of the purchase in
each case is kept up to a respectable minimum.
The War Savings Stamp and Thrift Stamp
scheme has been worked in all sorts of ways,
and it is becoming difficult to find anything new
and at the same time attractive. Any scheme
which the piano merchant can use must almost
inevitably depend ultimately upon some method
for promoting the sales of pianos and player-
pianos by special inducements. Such induce-
ments unfortunately are nearly always based on
price alone.
Rolls
There are, however, one or two other points
which may be interesting and which are not so
hackneyed, in reference to the possibility of
stirring up sales of player-pianos. In a para-
graph above we spoke of the music roll being
certainly never too plentiful around the Y. M.
C. A. huts at the great cantonments. Now, if
a merchant advertised that he would take old
second-hand music rolls in lots of $25 face value
and up, allow full value for them on the pur-
chase of new player-pianos by those whose in-
struments are old enough or sufficiently out-
of-date to make a new purchase at least prospec-
tive, he could get a lot of rolls to send to the
camps, a lot of prospects and .perhaps some
sales. In any case, if nothing else, the scheme
would bring in the names of persons who might
some day be willing to exchange the old player
for a new one, would give them an allowance
certificate (which might have a time limit on it),
to remind them of the merchant, and would cer-
tainly dig up a lot of old instruments needing
tuning and repairing, which could then be
utilized to bring in some revenue. Of course,
65-note rolls could hardly be included in an of-
fering like this.
Tn fact, it would not be half a bad idea to
offer liberal allowances on music rolls and rec-
ords, and such small low-value stuff, such allow-
ances to be payable in tuning, etc., and the old
goods to go to the camps.
Acknowledgments
The original notion of all this came from
reading about an idea worked a few weeks ago
by W. J. Hobbie, of Roanoke, Va., to whom ac-
knowledgments are therefore due.