The Edison phonograph monthly (Jan-Dec 1916)

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EDISON PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY, MARCH, 1916 Doings of the Dealers — Continued FEATURING THE CYLINDER LINE IN LONDON, ONTARIO WE give above the interior view of Edison Cylinder demonstration and salesroom of W. McPhillips, 189 Dundas Street, London, Ontario. Special attention is called to the Blue Amberol rack on the left, and the series of large drawers on the right. Mr. McPhillips is an enthusiastic Edison Cylinder man and enjoys a lucrative trade in instruments and records. He carries a large stock of Blue Amberol records and has these so systematically available in the rack as well as the drawers that a customer is never kept waiting. One of Mr. McPhillips' strong points (which other Cylinder dealers would do well to copy) is his intimate knowledge of the Blue Amberol records. He makes it his important duty to know the records thoroughly and to have ready their chief talking points. That's the secret of his Diamond Amberola business. IS YOUR SHOW WINDOW LIFELESS? DON'T forget that your show window is a "silent salesman" that can be mighty eloquent if the talking points are properly picturized, so to speak. Don't forget that this silent salesman is working almost all the time on a greater number of prospects than your best salesman could get into a store. Therefore, spend your best thought on the show window, for many judge the inner store, like the inner man, by the outward show. Remember that one of the greatest — if not the greatest — talking points for the Edison Diamond Amberola is what it adds to the home life, in better and brighter cheer, untiring pleasure and recreation. Take this feature and make the most of it in your window display. Above all, don't let your window display of Amberolas be a "lifeless" window. Even with experienced window trimmers this fault can be found. They make their displays too stiff, too lifeless — holding too little of the suggestion of the ease of home life. To set a machine at just such a square angle, so many records there at such an angle and so many records here, is to suggest that a carpenter with a square had laid it all out. Even if you have a small window space, try to get into it something of the atmosphere of a "homey" home. Of course, you might say that you have seen homes where everything was set about just so. But have you ever felt at home, or at ease, in such a home? If you have a store where you feel you must give over part of the window to other merchandise than Amberolas, try to place in the window only those things which might be found in a home near the machine. A chair with a cushion in it, a newspaper thrown carelessly in it, with the machine open and a record on it, gives you immediately a sense of the person having just left — of a home where music is enjoyed, where people of superior tastes live. This "life" impression can be heightened if a table is set close by and on it a table lamp — lighted at night — with a book open and thrown down carelessly, or perhaps a partially smoked cigar and a record, taken out of the carton, resting on the table, as if it were to be played next. These are only a few such ideas as will suggest themselves readily to the man who thinks and observes. If you doubt the wonderful suggestive power of home in such arrangements, just remember the famous ad of a well known glove house. On a table is thrown a pair of gloves as they would look when just taken off the hands — not set stiffly in a box, or otherwise stiffly displayed. Nearby these gloves is a lighted cigarette from which, in a most natural way, a curl of smoke ascends. Who can look at that simple picture without the imagination immediately supplying the missing parts — the well-dressed man, just in from the street, with its strong suggestion of use. There's life in that ad, and because there's life in it there have been sales — silent sales — made through it. The fact that, though it is the custom to change such ads very frequently, this glove house has used this ad for a long time is a tribute to its power of suggestion — its selling power. And it has selling power for the same reasons that shape our suggestions above, it is natural, true to life.