Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
WHAT IS THE FUTURE
FOR THE PIANO RETAILER?
T
HE piano industry—manufacturers and
retailers
alike—seems
honeycombed
with defeatist thinking. "There are
many who feel that the future of the
piano business is behind it." This is a time
for particularly clear thinking. The sooner
the piano business is thought through, the
better it will be for those now engaged in
the industry. If there are no possibilities of
making the piano business profitable, the
sooner those engaged in the industry realize
this and get into something else that has a
future the better it will be for them.
If
there are profitable possibilities in the piano
business, the sooner those engaged in the in-
dustry realize this fact and set to work with
this realization the better it will be for
everybody in the industry.
There are certain things which appear to
be basic facts.
DOES UNPROFITABLENESS FOR A PERIOD
DOOM A BUSINESS?
If every business that has not been profit-
able to the retailer for several years past, is
to be considered as having no future, what
line or lines of retailing have a future? Do
you know of any retailer who is claiming
to make money at the present time in retail-
ing radios, refrigerators, automobiles, elec-
trical appliances or other specialty lines? Do
you know of any retailer in the staple, so-
called necessity lines, such as clothing, gro-
ceries, or other similar lines, who is not
having an almost impossible fight to cover
his overhead?
An automobile dealer in our city is try-
ing to cover part of his overhead by renting
space in his principal display room to a
furniture dealer for the sale of furniture.
It seems unthinkable to us that a line of
retailing should be considered as doomed
for the future simply because it is not profit-
able during this, the most severe depression
that our country has ever had. Therefore,
why consider piano retailing as doomed for
the future just because it has not been profit-
able for several years?
WHAT OF THE FINANCIAL STABILITY OF
PIANO MERCHANTS?
Do you know that in practically every
trading area in the United States from the
Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to
Mexico, the financially strongest piano dealer
in that trading area would not trade the
assets and liabilities of his business even
up for the assets and liabilities of the strong-
est automobile dealer in that same trading
area? The piano business felt the depres-
sion long before the automobile business did.
Is it not remarkable that the financial posi-
tion of the strongest piano dealer in each
trading area is more sound than the financial
condition of the leading automobile dealer
THE
M U S I C
TRADE
By WALTER L BOND
Secretary and Treasurer, Weaver Piano
Co., York, Pa.
in that area? The question we here ask
with regard to automobile dealers might be
asked with equal certainty as to the answer
regarding dealers in other specialty lines.
Does this not show the financial vitality of
the piano business?
There has never been any specialty line
in which retailers have made so much money
for themselves as in the piano business. How
many men built up a fortune for themselves
in the retailing of washing machines or
electrical appliances, or any other specialty
that will compare to the fortunes that have
been built in the retailing of pianos? Every
trading area in the country has had, and
even today has, its financially-sound retailer
of pianos. In this respect the piano business
has a history of success for its retailers that
is not even approached by most other indus-
tries.
HAVE SIDE LINES BEEN THE REASON FOR
THE SUCCESS OF PIANO MERCHANTS?
It is true, the piano merchants have done
a large volume or business in selling sewing
machines, phonographs and records, radios,
and, more recently, electric refrigerators.
There are some who ascribe the present
financial position of some piano merchants
to these side lines. How much profit did the
piano man have on his phonograph and
record business after writing off the losses
on the phonographs and records that could
only be sold at ridiculous reductions after
the phonograph business declined?
How
much profit did the retailer have on radios
after he had written off the losses due to
changes in model. It is a well-known fact
that in the days of greatest phonograph sales,
exclusive phonograph shops were opened in
nearly every city in the country. What has
become of these and how many of them
got out of the business except through the
Bankruptcy Court ? How many of the exclusive
radio dealers that were found a few years
ago in every city in the country are left
today either in the radio or any other busi-
ness? Are there not plenty of signs that the
exclusive electric refrigerator dealer is headed
for the same unhappy ending as overtook
the exclusive phonograph and the exclusive
radio merchants of the past?
If these specialty side lines were not ulti-
mately profitable to the man engaged in
their sale exclusively, is it reasonable to
ascribe the present financial position of so
many piano merchants to these side lines?
Is not the piano merchant who abandons the
selling of pianos for some other specialty
REVIEW,
December,
1932
in serious danger of following these exclu-
sive phonograph and radio retailers to ulti-
mate failure?
There is no question but that the retail
piano man with his more highly developed
salesmanship, ingenuity, and financial sound-
ness has done a better job on these side
lines than most of the men who entered these
other specialty lines as exclusive merchants
of them. But is it sound reasoning to at-
tribute the present financial soundness of so
many piano retailers to these side lines in
which they have been engaged in connection
with the piano business?
MIGHTY OAKS FROM TINY ACORNS
The history of most of the substantial piano
retailers of the present day is that they en-
tered the business with very little capital.
Their business was built up from within.
Some of them were music teachers. Others
were tuners and service men. Some were
employed as salesmen by others and launched
out for themselves with very little capital.
What other specialty line has enabled so
many men to become financially independent
with so little capital available at the start?
The piano business has a proud record in
this respect. The same opportunities exist
today.
PIANO BUSINESS HAS BEEN ASSAULTED
FROM WITHOUT
The piano business has suffered the as-
saults of the efforts of many other indus-
tries to entice piano retailers away from
pianos and to enlist them in the sale of other
specialties. These other industries have rec-
ognized the salesmanship, the ingenuity, and
the soundness of piano retailers and sought
them as an outlet for their own products.
Part of the assault of these others industries
was directed at promoting the retail desira-
bility of their own products. But how many
radio, refrigerator and other specialty men
have told the piano dealer that he is foolish
to stick to the piano? How many of them
have told repeatedly that the piano is "dead"
or is ''passing out?" How often have you
been told by representatives of these other
specialty lines that there is no future for
the piano? This was not because these other
specialty lines hated the piano but wasn't
it rather because they thought, if they could
establish the passing of the piano, more of
the piano retailers' efforts would be directed
to the sale of their specialties? Isn't it a
fact that these other lines discouraged the
sale of pianos in the hope of increasing the
sale of their own specialty by piano retailers?
Perhaps no other industry has ever been
subjected to such assaults from without. In
the face of this, is it not surprising that
there are any pianos being sold by piano
retailers today?
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