Presto

December 26, 1925.
PRESTO
DOES TRADE-IN
PROVE A PROBLEM?
Just a word or two of
information—a prof-
itable message to
music merchants.
Progressive dealers
everywhere have long
ago discovered the
unusual possibilities
of selling and oper-
ating automatic
pianos.
SEEBURG instru-
ments, they have ob-
served, are best suited
to this strenuous ser-
vice—simplicity, re-
liability and endur-
ance mean something
Piano construction
must vary according
to the purpose—long
years of experience
has taught which is
best.
Co-operation after all,
harmonizes the or-
ganized effort of
dealer and factory—
an outstanding fea-
ture of the SEE-
BURG selling plan.
J. P. Seeburg
Piano Co.
"Leaders in the
Automatic Field"
1508-10-12-16 Dayton St.
Chicago
Address Dept. "E"
Veteran Traveler, Writing on Topic, Says It
Does Not and That Fair Price of Used
Piano Can Be Set and Upheld
by Dealer.
SELLING PIANO FIRST
When New Instrument Is Sold First, Allowance on
Trade-in Seldom Causes Any Grievous Differ-
ence Between Buyer and Seller.
The problem of trade-ins is one which interests the
local, state and national associations in the piano
trade and the individual dealer in or outside a trade
association is confronted with it every day. The
problem admittedly is an individual one. For a long
time the trade-in problem has been a towering one in
the automobile trade which has resorted to regula-
tion by rules passed and promulgated by trade asso-
ciations acting alone or through a joint body. But it
is evident that the automobile trade is finding the
trade-in problem an individual one.
The automobile dealers in several cities agreed to
a price list on used cars early in 1924. It was to
govern the dealers in making sales where a trade-in
figured. Everything seemed set for a pleasant proce-
dure with the dealers fraternally pledged to stick to
the schedule, but an order from the Federal Trade
Commission knocked down their house of hopes. The
commission ordered the agreement dropped, stating
that it bordered, if not actually encompassed, price-
fixing.
Back to Individual.
The trade-in problem again became one for the in-
dividual automobile dealer to solve. The result was
seen in the advertising of the automobile trade. Deal-
ers and agencies representing a well-known and popu-
lar car printed their unwillingness to consider "un-
reasonable allowances" on trade-ins. They intimated
that sales of new cars would be sacrificed rather than
an excessive price for an old car should be paid.
Automobile dealers are now acting on their own in-
dividual responsibility. Determining the size of the
allowance on the used car is a matter of casuistry
for the dealer.
Association Discusses It.
Recently the Cleveland Music Trades Association,
at its monthly meeting, discussed the matter of trade-
ins, and, according to the report in the trade papers,
a plan was formulated whereby the association would
set a uniform allowance on trade-ins. The members
agreed that such a scale of used piano values would
eliminate shopping by prospective purchasers who go
from store to store in the endeavor to get the highest
bid on their old pianos towards the purchase of a new
piano.
But there are successful dealers everywhere who
have solved the problem of the used piano offered on
trade. They are the kind who run their businesses in
a wise and ethical way and irrespective of what a
competitor is doing. They turn down many sales
every year because they will not consent to an exces-
sive allowance demanded by some wily shopper who
has gone the rounds. These successful dealers oper-
ate in places where local associations have adopted an
allowance scale, but each dealer considers he is a law
unto himself. Each one knows the obvious fact that
the excessive allowance made on used pianos in trade-
in deals dissipates the legitimate profit they should
get for the proper operation of their businesses.
Scale Would Help.
The adoption of a scale of allowances on used
pianos, if permitted to operate by the federal Trade
Commission, should prove a good thing for the deal-
ers who set allowances on trade-ins according to com-
petition. The nervy and cunning prospect who is
aware of the problem of the piano dealer and the
weakness of some of the dealers is not an uncommon
visitor to the piano warerooms. He makes the
rounds of the stores and has lots of fun bidding 'em
up or trying to make the anxious dealer go over the
allowance of a competitor.
Everything depends on the manner in which the
involved trade-in is handled. Perhaps a great many
dealers complain about the evil of the trade-in. But
it is certain that numbers of dealers have never found
it an evil. The proposition to trade in a used piano
constitutes no problem for them. The why of the
matter is easy to find out. When the dealer tries to
make a sale through the allowance made on a trade-
in, he is not selling the piano in the proper sense of
merchandising. Where the new instrument is sold
first the allowance on the trade-in seldom causes any
such grievous difference of opinion between the dealer
and customer that the sale is apt to be upset.
A Dealers' View.
"Success in solving the trade-in problem may be
measured by the extent to which the dealers resist
the efforts of the used piano owners to 'work them,' "
said the manager of a piano department in St. Louis
this week. He told a story that bears upon the topic.
About ten years ago, a St. Louis man, finding his
children at the music lesson age, bought a used piano
made in 1870 for which he paid $60. It was recom-
mended as durable and it proved so. The family of
two boys and two girls thumped upon it from child-
hood to boyhood and girlhood and the fine old instru-
ment stood the gafif in a way that should make the
makers proud.
. Story Continues.
When the children, or rather three of them, had
grown up to working age, the family became inspired
with the idea that a good playerpiano, while provid-
ing a vehicle for their manual art, would also give
them the playing of piano artists and the ever-chang-
ing music for dancing as well. Dad and Mother
agreed and the casual visit of a pianohouse canvasser
one day started negotiations. Father and Mother
and the girls dropped into th« store one evening by
arrangement and listened with pleasure to the player-
piano recommended by the salesman. But the men-
tion of the price made Dad catch his breath in trepi-
dation. "We'll think it over," he explained, as he
herded his flock through the front door.
Hopped to It.
But the salesman didn't give him long to think.
He was around to the house next day and delivered
his line of persuasiveness. But Dad was still wabbly
from the high figure named for the playerpiano and
failed to respond with any degree of elation.
"Why not trade this piano in as part payment?"
said the salesman cheerily as if the thought of a
trade-in was an inspiration.
"What will you allow for it?" asked the owner,
who valued it like Desdemona valued Othello, for
the dangers it had passed. The salesman scooped up
a few handfuls of barber shop chords, ears alert to
catch the tonal niceties.
"Fine. We'll allow $70 on yoar old instrument."
was the surprising answer.
It Was No Wonder.
Here was something contrary to Dad's conceptions
of commodity values. Did pianos, like wine and
whisky, improve with age? Here was his old piano
which he had bought for $60 ten years before and
upon which his kids and all the kids of the neighbor-
hood had banged day in and day out, and it was
worth $10 more than he had paid for it. He couldn't
understand it and he showed his wonderment. The
salesman mistook the signs.
"My figure disappointed you, maybe, but it wasn't
final. You value the instrument and I'll admit it is
sweet and tuneful," eagerly lied the salesman. "Here,
I'll take it on myself to name $75, I'll even," he
added, after a glance at the poker face of the pros-
pect, "allow you $85."
Back to His Shell.
"We'll think it over," was the response. It was a
perfectly new thought which presented an old piano
with amazing ability to soar in price.
The playerpiano prospect had a picnic next day in
the piano stores while he studied the peculiarities of
piano selling. The valuation of his old piano he
found variously set at from $50 to $100, but it amused
him when it jumped to $150 in one place. He had
about decided to put off indefinitely the purchase of
a playerpiano when he encountered a real piano
salesman in the last store he entered.
He liked the looks of the man at the first greeting
although he knew the salesman was sizing him up
like a doctor would a new patient. He didn't resent
it. "I've been playing piano store poker all day and
now I want to take the mask off and appear in my
own face. I'm a possible playerpiano customer with
a confession to make," he frankly stated.
A Good Confession.
It was the story beginning with the purchase of
the old piano ten years before and ending with the
incidents connected with the negotiations about the
playerpiano, involving a trade-in transaction.
"Well, I consider you a prospect of mine now,"
said the salesman when the story was told, "but I
would have preferred to have sold you the player
first and afterwards made you an allowance of $50
on the old upright. You may think it funny I should
place a price on it without seeing it. But you told
me the name and no matter how it looks or how it
sounds, I know the durable, I might say indestruct-
ible, part, is worth the price I said to any dealer."
Well, that prospect, who had an honest name and
a family of ambitious workers, left the store the
owner of the good playerpiano.
M. D. S.
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