Music Trade Review

AUGUST
25, 1923
THE
MUSIC
9
REVIEW
TRADE
ST. LOUIS DEALERS TIGHTEN ON TRADE-IN ALLOWANCE
Curb Being Put on Salesmen in Making Allowances on Used Pianos-Gene r al Sales Continue
to Show Improvement-Charles Mueller Resigns From the Kieselhorst Organization
ST. Lons, Mo., .'\. ugust 20.· The sli ghtly im­
proved bu s iness condi tion which b egan to de­
velop we ek before last is with us still and th e
impr ovement las t week was somewhat more
m arked. There is increased confid ence that it
ha s come to stay and that it will grow throu g h
th e weeks of .'\utumn. While sales have not
been great ly augme nted the inquiries are more
numerous. The hopeful thing about this is that
it is spontaneous and not the result of greatly
incr ease d activity on the part of the merchants
all d their sa les men. The reve rse may be said
to be true; that is, the in creased inquiry , in­
s l ead of bein g the re s ult of increased activity,
is stimulat in g increased activity. Salesm('n a rc
encourag<;d to redouble their efforts and re s ults
are beginning to show.
There has been a general but not concerted
movement during the past fe\\' weeks to unloan
us ed uprights which were clogging the sa les­
rooms ri g hts in St. Louis, either new or old, as S t.
L ouis is a player town, but out in Mi sso uri
and in the ad joining Slate s uprights still are
in d ema nd and the method of working off the
trad e -in s has been to pla ce Ih e ln with dealers
i,; th e cities of Mi ss ouri, Illinoi s, Ok la homa,
Arkansas, Kansas and Ne bra s ka . The Kie se l­
horst Piano Co., alone, h as so p laced about 100
of its trade-in". Vv'ith the clearing of this con­
gestion the houses arc all in b e tter condition
for e nt e ring the Fall campai g n.
S imulta neously, there is a more or less ge n­
e ra l tightening up on trade-in terms. The tend­
e ncy is to restrict the latitud e of sa lesmen in
thi s regard and hold down to th e Illini!11um the
a ll owance for old upright s in making sales.
It is hecoming increa s in g ly the fashion for
S t . l .o ui s piano men to g o motoring on their
vacat ions. \"1..'\. Lippman , s ecretary a nd man­
age r of th e Field-Lippman P iano Co, most en~
tllll ,,;as tic of St. Loui s motori s t s, has been do­
in g it for years and has mad e severa l tour s to
Ca li fo rnia, with a ('alllprile trailer for shelt<;r,
a nd h as made many shorter trip s. He returned
rece ntl y from a Irip to Indiana. O. \. FIeld,
pre~iden t of the co mpa n y, a l,o has returned
from a trip to Indi a na. H . \. Kieselhorst, vice­
preside nt of th, ' K icse lh orst Piano La., has re­
tumed frollt an ex ten s ive trip t o the No rth. H.
1,. jVIount, of the Field - Lippman Co., left at the
end of last weck on a week's trip to Chicdgo
;,nd vicinity. T. W. Phillips, of the BaldWIn
Co., has returned from a drive to Chicago. F.
:\. lvIycrs and D. 1\ Rovee, oi the ,ame com­
pany, are on tour " to C hi ca~,o . Clarence Trump,
of the Kiesclhor s t Co., is back from a 7,SOO-mile
Irip to California.
E. A. Kieselh o r s l, prC" id0llt of the Kiesel­
h o r s t Piano Co., w ill lea ve Se pt e mber 5 to place
his so n, Farl, e ilC ht e(' n ye ars o ld, in Yale and
another so n , Sid ney, in Phillip s Academy, An ­
dover, \ ,I ass., to pr epar e fo r ent ra n ce 10 Ya le.
His olde st son, \ Va ll ace, ,,·ill be a jllnior al
Yale the cnsuinc; term.
Ernest I· Smilh, fOrlnerl.,. of the Frederick
,\[lIsic Hou se , Grand Rapids, Mich, was a re ­
cent v isitor h e re.
It was expected that he
". ould take a position h e re, but he chan g ed hi s
mind. E. \V. Furbush, of the Haddorff Piano
Co ., Rockford, 111., was her e last week.
Charles 1Ifu e llcr, for th e past tell ye Ihe Kie se lh orst Piano Co., has resi gned to go
10 California, where he w ill make hi s h on le.
Bruno H ei nt ze, formerly wi th th e Mengel Mu­
sic Co., h as joined the Famo us & Darr Co.
organization . F. H. T e rr y, for m erl y of the
Frederi ck Piano Co., P ittsb urgh, Pa., 'who was
announ ced as comin g to be sales mana ge r of
the Famou s & Barr Co. piano departm ent, is
not com in g:, due to a change of plans.
lVl ana ge r Ge issler, of th e Famous & Barr Co.
piano d e partment, is off e ring thi s week, at spe­
c ial prices , the twelve IZirnba\l pianos used by
principal s of the i\Iunicipal Opera Co. in th eir
apa rlm e nt s durin g' Ihe P1 s t seaso n.
Victrola No. 300
$250
Electric, $290
Mahogany or walnu t
Vlctor supremacy
is the supremacy
of performance
"There IS no way to
judge the future except
by the past."
Victor supremacy ex­
tends over a quarter-cen­
tu ry. A consideration
of vital importance to
.every dealer in Victor
products.
T. M. PLETCHER SHOWS HOW TO INCREASE ROLL SALES
Tells of System Used by Dealer Whereby a Direct Request for One Roll Usually Leads to the
Sale of Two or More-Basing Sales on the Customers' Taste in Music
In a recent article approaring in The Review,
e nLitl ed "Bui ldin g Up Sales in the Music Roll
Department," Ihe illlJ)ortan ce of di scover in g the
mu s ical taste o f th e c usto ili e r s ill tha l d('part­
ment was s tre ssed, a nd Ihe plan u se d b y a cer­
lain dealer to attain thi s end was ~ i ve n in SO llI e
detail. That this :nc\hod of c reat in {! roll sales
is s uccessful, is shown in th e fo ll owing letter
fr0111 1'. j'y!' Pletch er, J11'esident of the Q R S
Music Co., who cites the example of another
dealer who uses a somewhat silili lar system
with the same results in increase d sa les in that
department:
"Chi cago, '\ugust 18, 1923.
"Ed itor Music Trade Revie\\:
" I was. very l11u c ll intereste d in your article
'Building Up Sales in th e !I'I us ic Roll Depa rt­
ment' w hich appear ed in yo ur iss ue of August
II tho
"Recently the writer 's att e ntion was called
to one of our account s th at seeil led to be d oi n g
an unusual\y lar ge volull1e of business.
"I cal\ed upon the lad y in charge and learned
that her average sales to customers calling' were
very high; the hi g h averages maintained by
working hard on customers who own hi"h­
priced players or whose ability to purchase a
half-d ozen rolb \\itholll the necessity of COIl­
s idering expe n se " 'e r e "ill' io ll s; and Ihere arc
thousand s of ""ch play e r ow ne r s, so me \\ ho
arc wi llin g and who do pa y tell and t \\'eh-e do l
lar s for one bottle of Illu s ic th a t on ly Ia s t< for
a few h ours at be s t, or wo r ~e, as the case ma y
he.
"One thing especially I noticed whi!... I \';"s
in the department was, a lad y came in and
asked the sales lady if she h~.d 'Yes, We Have
No Dan would yo u like to hear it?' she said: 'Yes
llIa'am, \I'e ha ve it, and we have ju st gotten in
a new lot of th e new rol\ "Sad Hawaiian Sea."
\ Vo uld you lik e 10 h car it?' The customer a n­
""c re d in the a ffirmative. The rol\ wa s pla yed
a nd th e c usto m e r took both th e banana son g
a n d Ih e o n e the s ak s la dy s u gge s tC'd and pla yed .
"A fter the cu s tomer left I asked the sa les­
lady if thi s was her usual procedure. She said
it was, becau s e s he had discovered that nearly
every customer would listen to th e playing of
the roll th ey came in to purchase and h a d a l­
r ea dy made up their mind to buy, and the play­
in g or that consume d about all th e time th e y
could spare. The :;aleslady stated further tb at
s h e worked upon the theor) that th e pov: er of
s ll (r~'es ti o n
was a psychological reality that
cllOu ld b e cashed in upon.
"A noth e r thin g s h e docs that brings re su lt s
is t o m a rk on eac h individual bulletin that g oes
to eac h c u s tomer a couple of r o ll s that she
think s the ells tomer would like ; that is, she has
a kn owledge of wha t particular kind of mllsic
n'ery c u otomer on the books lik e s, an d she
11 l:lrks a co uple of numbers especially, a nd calls
their at l e ntion to thelll. This brin g's good re­
lurn s by ,vay 01 telephone and mail orders.
" Salesma n s hip is a scirnce, and in no line of
,"(' rc ha nd i, in ., is the science of sa les m a nship
a n:, m o re rol l d ('p ~ rt ll1 t nt.
"Y o ur " very trul \',
"T. M.
PU;TCHEJ{,
"Presirient."
Victrola No. 400
$250
Electric, $290
M a h ogany
Other styles $25 to $1500
,~:- .mt
~
~tJ·
,
"HIS Mt.-.S T":R} VOICE"
Victrola
REG . U.S . PAT. OFF
.Look under the lid and on the labels
for these Victor trade -marks
Victor Talking
Machine Co.
Camden, N.J.