Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, FEBRUARY, WUO
ONE PRICE PLAN
proves its value, builds confidence, and permits extension of
operations on a clean broad front says, W. Howard Beasley,
Dallas, Texas
"The Master Salesman"
T the outset, I wish to pay a tribute to
our Master Salesmen—those men of hon-
est purpose, peculiar talents, and special-
ized training who facilitate and increase the
orderly interchange of our wants and necessi-
ties; those well balanced, friendly men who
radiate a quiet contageous confidence, and
compose seeming differences into convincing
mutual advantages. They are earnest, eager,
active men, yet they are gifted with much pa-
tience and perseverance. They know how to
talk and teach, and yet they are alert to lis-
ten and zealous to learn. They appreciate un-
derstatement, and, delight in overfulfilment.
Having first cleared the mind, they touch the
heart to action, and deliver to each customer
a full measure of the fruits of his labor, and
gather for each industry the bread of its life.
They have preceded the missionary and the
flag to remote places, and they are forever
finding new points of interest on the beaten
paths at home. They join present and pros-
pective supplies with known and unknown de-
mands, and excel in the difficult art of serv-
ing two masters. They serve both producer
and consumer, offer both incentives for enter-
prise and fidelity, and obtain for each, thru the
medium of credit and money, the true rewards
of industry, prudence, and thrift.
Their achievements, while anticipated months
in advance, are enthusiastically proclaimed
upon noisy cash registers and humble bank
books at home, and then are echoed and re-
echoed to every department of the world's vast
If every salesman in the land should become
productive machine, and the final grand totals
are as exciting in high places as each report
is soothing in the front office,
a Master Salesman over night, we could retire
Roosevelt in a blaze of glory, and wipe out
the national debt before a Garner, Vandenberg,
or Dewey is out of office.
You are to be congratulated if you have
chosen salesmanship as a career, for no calling
holds greater promise or is more quickly re-
warded for results obtained. The larger the
salesman's check, the greater is the joy of its
maker. More power to the true salesman every-
where. He is the soldier of peace, the defender
of the faith, and our best hope for a more
abundant life.
A
What is the "One-Price Plan?"
Many of our leading piano stores operate
on the "one-price" plan, and the term "One-
Price" is well understood by most piano men,
but a brief explanation may be necessary for
others, particularly for customers. One-Price
does not mean an all-time fixed price, or a
monopoly price, or even an inflexible price,
but it does mean that the fair price predeter-
mined by the management is the price to be
paid by the customer. Prices may be raised
or lowered to meet market or operating con-
ditions and the salability of particular instru-
ments, or they may be uniformly adjusted for
quantity purchases, but, whatever these prices
are, they are the prices paid by the customer.
A "one-price" policy can be maintained with-
out advertising it, or bragging about it,, or even
making a much-a-do about it to every custo-
mer. The best "one-price" policy is not the
one talked about the most, but the one lived
up to most sincerely. It is never presented
in a "take it or leave it" attitude, and of
course the price must offer good value to the
buyer or it can not stand. The presentation
of the price to the customer is all important—
every detail of it, from the price tag to the
final consummation of the sale, but much of
it is not vocal, and it is well to remember in
the enforcement of this as : n any policy that
"the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life".
The practical impossibility of obtaining all
"trade-ins" at their actual value may be said
to make a uniform price impossible, but the
fact that trade-in allowances keep "the lowest
price to all alike" from yielding uniform real-
ized gross profits is not a condemnation of the
"one-price" system, but rather it is a charge
against the trade-in system. The deliberate
introduction of error into the price to com-
pensate for error in trade-ins is not, in my
opinion, a satisfactory approach to a price
policy. Be it further understood that our dis-
cussion here gives no consideration to those
stores which deliberately pad their prices in
order to offer deceptive concessions, but it is
confined to stores whose prices are meant to
be legitimate to the extent that they offer
good value whether or not they operate on
a strict "one-price" policy.
Based upon the operating statement and ex-
perience of the legitimate store not on a "one-
price" system, or upon mere expediency and
the path of least resistance, a strict "one-
price" system may be hard to justify. To the
uninitiated, it is a difficult problem to demon-
strate mathematically. In such a store, total
price concessions may not amount to more than
5% of all gross sales at the quoted or marked
price, but it is well known that the average
concessionee can not be interested in the sav-
ing of a mere 5%. The Concessionee or con-
cession^ wants all he can get and usually gets
10% or more. What actually happens in some
stores is that two-thirds of the customers are
sold at the marked price, and that one-third
in one way or another obtain reductions aver-
aging 15%, or say that half of the customers
get reductions averaging 10%—the principle
is the same.
The favored few, or many, not only avoid
paying a profit, based on average net sales
profit for the store, but they avoid paying
their full pro-rata share of the total expense.
The merchant justifies these concessions on
the theory, or fact, that on such sales he has
at least obtained his first cost and a part of
his total expense, thereby making it unneces-
sary for him to obtain from his full-price-cus-
tomers all of his expense, or for them alone to
pay the whole of it. He may furthermore feel
that in accepting the cut price sale he is deny-
ing his competitor just so much sustenance.
Aesop had a name for that, but I am not trying
here to condemn anyone. I am trying to offer
a basis for helpful discussion and thinking,
and it is my hope that others will modify or
amplify what is here being said to the benefit
of our trade
To contine,—this merchant may reason that
had he reduced all price tags 5% and stuck to
"one-price" he would have secured little if any
more full-price business, and that then he or
his fewer customers would have had to bear
the same fixed expense on %, 2/3, or y z the
former volume as the case might be. If then
a given store decides to operate on "one-price"
it may be thought that it actually must charge
more; or if it succeed, as we know in the long
run it must and does, in adjusting fixed ex-
penses to its volume, that only a 5% lower
average price is possible. But the "one-price"
plan may have advantages not reflected in
the average concessions granted by the "non-
one-price' 'store. Volume may increase and
relative expense decrease, and I hope to show
how that may come about.
Value of a Definite Price Policy
Having a definite one-price policy the man-
agement can, for instance, train salesmen to
speak softly but with authority. They can
17
move about freely, help each other, and close
sales without immediate contact with the boss.
They can feel a sense of pride in their work
and a sense of fair play among themselves.
They can hope to become Master Salesmen,
and to give attention to more important ser-
vices to a customer than moving the price a
little one way or the other. How cheap are
shoes that do not fit, or a piano that is not
the best for its purpose? If you permit it,
the price can become the biggest question,
possibly the biggest argument, in any sale.
But if the price has been established by those
most competent to know what the price should
be, who would contend that its reduction is
the most important consideration of the buyer
or of the salesman? If a salesman is to give
competent advice, help the customer to exer-
cise a wise choice, fit the goods to the cus-
tomer's wants, purpose, purse and good taste;
show courtesy, promptness, and attention to
satisfying details, how much time should he or
the customer give to a minor adjustment in
the one thing that they are the least com-
petent to establish—that is, the price. I will
grant you that the price is important, every
single dollar of it, but for that very reason
it should be so right that it can be kept that
way.
No responsible owner of a business would
be willing to let a group of salesmen sell at
the best price each could get. Under such
circumstances he could not call his life his
own, and I am reminded here of a pat expres-
sion to the effect that "if you do not know
where you are going, you are lost before you
start". If upper and lower limits are set,
the lower tends to become the rule; and since
violations are not easily controlled., a higher
authority than the salesman becomes a neces-
sary part of almost every sale. Yes, some
business can be got by mainstrength and
awkwardness, but compare that with having
the boys bring in deals regularly at predeter-
mined prices with only an occasional over-
allowance on a trade-in to contend with. A
flute may properly be full of holes, but not
the price policy of a firm that expects to step
out and do things.
Without a definite "one-price" policy, opera-
tions can not be extended on a broad clean
front. Advertising loses value and directness.
Time is lost in "horse-trading", and there are
apt to follow arguments, adjustments, loss
of confidence by customers and loss of courage
and stamina by honest salesmen. Likewise
loss of goodwill and prestige for the house and
collection department, and loss of repeat sales.
Effective moral and spiritual values are lost,
and who would deny that such values affect
the efficiency of a business? Without a firm
foundation for truth, for simplified control,
for strict observance of fair play, and with-
out a genuine desire to serve its customers,
no business can attain its highest efficiency.
If a business is implemented with workable
and equitable policies, if it choose not to take
advantage of the weaknesses of human nature,
if it can be self-critical in the interest of all
of its customers, and if it perform all of its
functions with method, simplicity and general
satisfaction, it may finally reach a state where
goodwill
is
compounded,
entanglements
avoided, and where custom is obtained with
greater ease and serviced at less expense.
Under such circumstances its prices may be-
come considerably less than the "asking-price"
of its less "spirited" competitors, and yet it
may earn both equitable and adequate profits.
If a "one-price" policy produces such results,
then certainly it may be said to "pay". Most
of the sales which a store loses after establish-
ing itself on a "one-price" basis become mere-
ly the most desirable sales to lose,—its powers
of helpful discrimination become almost auto-
matic, and intelligent discrimination is busi-
ness at its best for both the store and the
customer.
Conflict between Individual and Group
Without a definite one-price policy there is
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