Music Trade Review

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62
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
NOVKMBER 7,
1925
E. Grant Ege Talks on Net Price Marking Conditions—(Continued from page 61)
this question because our mail order business
outbalances to a very large extent what we do
at retail in our store. We feel satisfied the
teacher is entitled to a preferential discount,
permitting her to at least get back the neces-
sary expense she must go to in order to get
her supplies. Now I refer particularly to the
teacher living at a distance from where she
must get her supplies. Since April IS, with
transportation charges SO per cent higher, it is
more necessary than ever.
"In a communication to me personally a pub-
lisher stated that the teacher should charge a
larger tuition fee. I wonder if that publisher
is familiar with teachers' conditions in the small
towns. He surely does not know teachers in
such localities receive the very minimum tuition
fee, probably from 50 cents to $1 per lesson.
He further stated that if she did not want to
do that she should charge an advanced price
for music to her pupils. Could anything be
more ridiculous? I remember very distinctly
when I was a youngster, and I was of the class
of people whose parents strained every point
to give the child a musical education, I was
studying with a teacher who endeavored to
charge more than the music was marked. My
mother was very outspoken of what she thought
of that teacher, and I think that feeling will
exist more in towns and villages than in cities
the size Kansas City was at that time. Does
anyone think it at all possible to charge for
an article of merchandise a higher amount than
it is marked? If he does so, he would be
branded immediately as other than being
honest.
"It has been stated by some dealers who are
in favor of this plan that in the face of the
mail order houses quoting special discounts
they have not lost business and have even had
a gain. Isn't it ridiculous on the face of it for
a dealer to expect to have his business remain
the same one year after the other? Doesn't he
expect a natural gain, especially in the face of
the tremendous things being done to-day in the
music industry? In the last five years practi-
cally every school in the country has become
interested in music and is putting forth every
effort to create a larger interest in this field,
not only in teaching chorus music but instru-
mental as well.
"It is true in the larger cities a teacher does
not want or expect a discount, because she has
at hand a supply of material making it unneces-
sary to go to the expense of ordering by mail.
"It has been stated by the publishers gen-
erally who are so much in favor of this plan
of marking music that the Federal Trade Com-
mission will not permit music being marked
at a price other than that at which it is expected
to be sold. What is the price at which it is ex-
pected to be sold? Is it not so that the greater
part of music distributed is purchased by teach-
ers or at least recommended by them? In the
rural districts it is reasonable to suppose that
80 to 90 per cent of it is purchased by teachers.
"In an interview with Mr. Babcock, the Fed-
eral Trade Commission Examiner, with regard
to this price matter, he told me that the Fed-
eral Trade Commission did not care what music
was marked so long as it was not a fictitious
price. He went so far as to ask me if it would
be fictitious to mark music regularly sold in
the larger cities at 40 cents to 50 cents. I told
him I did not think it would make any differ-
ence. The public knows anyway there is a dis-
count on sheet music and teachers do not gen-
erally, when reselling, sell for the price marked,
i. e., as it was marked previous to the time
when this plan went into effect.
"He told me it would be perfectly satisfac-
tory to the Federal Trade Commission for
sheet music to be marked so that it would
permit of a discount being allowed to teachers,
or for dealers having a larger overhead to sell
it in accordance with their overhead. I prob-
ably talked with him, in all, two hours and ex-
plained in detail the condition of the sheet
music business as we find it in Kansas City
and also the conditions which I am sure pre-
vail in all communities where teachers are com-
pelled to order their supplies by mail.
"Mr. Babcock took my testimony, as well as
the testimony of two other employes in our
sheet music department. After having finished
taking testimony he stated to me if the Fed-
eral Trade Commission had known when it
began what he had just learned the Commis-
sion would have taken an entirely different po-
sition. So it is my opinion that the Federal
Trade Commission will not interest itself in
the matter if the price put on sheet music is
such that will permit of a fair and just discount
being allowed.
"I would further say that, to me, it is most
unusual that there should be one retail sheet
music dealer who would not be willing to see
sheet music marked at a price that would per-
mit of it being sold at retail above what is just
an ordinary living profit. It is admitted that
the returns from the resale of sheet music are
less than in any other line of merchandise, cost
of handling considered. It is an admitted fact
that the experienced people who have devoted
their lives to the work receive less compensa-
tion than in any other line. And there isn't
any question but that there are more brains
and more actual initiative found among the
best sheet music people than in almost any other
industry, at least it requires more intelligence.
"So why should the dealer want the skimpiest
kind of profit, for there can be no question that
at the price with which sheet music is marked
now a dealer can't possibly meet the cut-rate
dealers' discounts and continue in business or
at least pay his people what is a fair and living
wage.
"If this dealer or that dealer wants to main-
tain the advanced price because of his own
conditions, that is his affair; but if another
dealer finds his conditions are such that he can
allow a discount, why limit him?
"Certainly, the dealer in New York City is
able to make at least from S to 10 per cent
more than the dealer in the Middle West or
the Far West because of transportation
charges. Our overhead, exclusive of transpor-
tation, is equal to or greater than it is in the
Eastern cities, so why should the dealer living
close to the source of supplies have that prefer-
ential difference, for I know of no publishers
among the standard houses who will pay trans-
portation charges?
"In connection with my statement regarding
the price question I want to bring out just a
few more facts.
"In October or November of 1923 I went to
New York ostensibly to attend a publishers'
meeting which had been called with the object
of formulating plans for putting into execution
the net no-discount plan. My object in going
was to protest against any change.
"When I got there I made every effort to
say something to discourage the plan, but I was
hooted down, told I was out of order and that
I was for retrograding rather than progressing.
I left that meeting very much discouraged, but
with the hope that the publishers and dealers
advocating the plan would see light before the
change was made. They didn't see it.
"Then when the plan went into effect, either
in June or July 1, 1924, I gave the word of our
house that we would give the plan every kind
of an opportunity and that we would not cut
prices, even in the face of our biggest com-
petitor having quoted a discount of 20 per cent
from the net, no-discount prices. That was in
July or in August, 1924.
"September the teachers' business opened and
I saw from the time teachers began to show
activity that we were suffering from propaganda
sent out by the house referred to above. I
noticed we were losing business, but in the face
of this, after conferring with Mr. Jenkins, we
decided to await developments; to await a time
when the publishers would see the terrible
predicament of dealers like ourselves. This
condition continued until November, when I
made a trip to the East where I was again told
I was out of order and that I didn't know
what I was talking about.
"I went to Boston. As complete a meeting
of music dealers and publishers as could pos-
sibly have been gave a dinner and I was of the
party, where the matter was discussed at great
length. One Boston publisher was most out-
spoken in stating that we did not have to meet
competition, that we could sell music for any
price; no matter what the other fellow's price
was, we could get what we wanted for it.
"It wasn't a question of what people could
(Continued on Mtf e 63)