The Edison phonograph monthly (Jan-Dec 1909)

Edison Phonograph Monthly, March, 1909 7 Records so arranged that you can instantly change from a topical song to a grand opera selection, thus exhibiting its wide range of entertainment? You cannot sell an instrument for which you must apologize. The Edison Phonograph needs no excuses. All it needs is a fair show. Please see that it gets it. The Phonograph Part of Your Store No matter how you sell Phonographs — whether they are a side line in a big store, or whether vou have a store which sells nothing but Phonographs— there are certain things which will make any Phonograph business better. Never forget that selling Phonographs is an art. The demand for Phonographs, even with our tremendous advertising, is an acquired demand. People can be counted upon to buy food and clothing. Nature attends to the one, and custom to the other; but amusements, into which class the Phonograph falls, are a matter of acquired taste. Therefore, the way to sell people Phonographs and Records is to remind them constantly that they want them. The desire for amusement is in everybody. The Phonograph will always attract attention. Therefore, remember that the Phonograph is its own best advertisement. Keep one going in your store, and in the window in the evening when the people are on the streets. Keep your window full of Phonograph suggestions. Show and advertise the new Records, and remember that to the man who has not heard it, an old Record is just as good as a new one. Not enough old Records are sold. Both the Dealer and his customers get too interested in the new ones, but the profit on the old ones is just as good, and there are more of them ; so do not forget the old Records for the new. The Successful Store Do you realize that if you have good store methods, good advertising and good window display, you have every advantage of the largest and most successful department store in the world ? You like to sell goods just to sell them. The methods used by the successful stores are the best methods for all. Bring the people to your store as often as possible. When in the store, keep them as in terested as possible, and keep your windows full of your goods. This applies to any kind of goods, but we are interested in applying it to Phonographs and Records. The business of the National Phonograph Company is not only the largest Phonograph business in the world, but it is one of the largest enterprises of any kind. Millions of Phonographs and many more millions of Records have been sold. The entire business has been built up by advertising. We have made people want something that they never knew they wanted before, by our advertising. Certainly you can make the people in your town want it by your advertising. By "your advertising" we do not mean printed ads in the papers. We mean the advertising of the store itself, the windows and the display of the goods in front of the store. There is nothing that reminds a man (or a woman) that he wants a Phonograph so much as seeing it every day, except hearing it every day. It is a good thing to make people in your town see a Phonograph every day. It is still better to make them hear it every day. The Youngest Artist A Dealer writes the following interesting letter: A recent article on Home Made Records in the Phonograph Monthly strikes me as being of some importance. I have a record of my baby girl's voice at twenty-six hours old, also one at two weeks old. Expect to make one occasionally; they are well worth the price. I don't know of a younger singer for the National Phonograph Co. than my two and onehalf weeks old daughter. Of course she does not do so well as some of the older artists, but in my opinion she is simply great. I hope to be able to play these records to her when she is old enough to deny crying as the recorder has recorded her cry on one of these blank records. One of our Western salesmen a few days ago received a letter from an Edison Dealer in his territory, in which, after expressing an opinion of his own concerning the merit of Edison goods, said : "Another and more convincing proof is that out of forty-six members present at a recent meeting of the Musicians' Union of Duluth, twenty-six were owners of talking machines and twenty-two of these were Edisons. That, in my estimation, is quite a good 'ad' for your machine and its reproducing merits." If you didn't read the article beginning on page 6, better do so now.