Radio today (Sept 1935-Dec 1936)

FROM NOW TILL CHRISTMAS Some practical reminders for the radio dealer, from a big-league radio merchandiser By H. L. M. CAPRON* * GIVEN appropriate and consistently aggressive merchandising, this year should make radio sales history. This month and the next two months of December and January will normally account for some 46 per cent of your year's business. Manufacturers have their new lines in production. Dealers have selected the lines they will sell. Consumer advertising campaigns have started. The time for planning and thinking is past. 'The time for ACTION is here. In most sections of the country the radio market saturation is so great that our primary selling efforts must be given to the replacement market, with compacts and small table models definitely relegated to the "personal" and second set category. This may require a different selling technique than you have used in the past; do not let tradition bind you too long or too tight to the old market. The passing of the "original set" market, and the growth of replacement sales, place a new importance on customer goodwill — place a new value on your Service Division, and the satisfaction it must GUARANTEE— give you the best possible answer to cut-price competition. Sales from service The first large source of new business may well come from the work and the records of the Service Division. Go back over the sales and service records of the past several years. Get in touch with these people, by personal call, by phone, or by personal letter. Tell them about a new radio, and offer, for a very nominal sum, to give their present radio a thorough overhaul in your shop. Loan them a new set and see that it is installed with a good lead-in antenna. The appearance, the tone, the foreign reception of the new radio will cer tainly make the old one seem even poorer than it is, and this demonstration will be far more effective than any sales talk. Up-to-date windows A series of window displays calculated to drive home the fact that the old radio is obsolete can be built around the comparisons of well known obsolete and modern things. In each of the following windows (which can be done in miniature or with photos) an early electric radio should be compared with a 1936 model, preferably of the same make. 1. A wood-burning locomotive and train, with a streamliner. 2. An old horse and buggy with a modern automobile. 3. The Pony Express with a modern motor truck. 4. A covered wagon with the modern air-liner. 5. A sailing ship with the Normandie. 6. A tallow candle with a modern indirect floor lamp. 7. Women's dress and hat styles of a decade ago with the new fall styles. 8. A bathing beauty of 1900 with the 1935 girl. "Hear the whole shoiv" Displays dealing directly with the technical superiority of the new sets are also excellent attention-getters, particularly so when motion, chang *For the past 14 years manager of one of the largest retail radio businesses in the world. — 1936 models offer more chances Jor Xmas selling — best windows accent latest set features — but wise dealers won't depend on them alone — leads a-plenty in local news columns — repetition in ads makes reputation — the real friend-making devices pay dividends ing color, changing light, or an element of mystery are involved. One example of this type of display follows : A large photo of an orchestra, of such size as to fill the entire back of the window, and so arranged that a segment can be made invisible, through special painting and lighting or shadow-box lighting. A radio of the vintage of 1928, and a 1936 model, preferably of the same manufacture. Three simple signs. Over the orchestra — "$2,000,000 WEEKLY EOE EADIO BROADCASTS . . HOW MUCH DOES YOUR RADIO LOSE"? Before the old set, "THIS RADIO RECEIVES ONLY PART OF THE MUSIC." Before the new set, "THIS RADIO RECEIVES THE WHOLE ORCHESTRA." Arrange the lighting so that the sign on the old set is visible only when a part of the orchestra is invisible. Getting leads Wise dealers don't depend on window displays alone to bring in prospects. Offer your old customers a commission of 5 per cent, or a year's free service, for every sale that is completed with a prospect of their reference. Plenty of leads, already half sold, will result; also follow the wedding and birth announcements in your local paper, and to every one send an appropriate engraved card of congratulations. File these names by dates, and each year send an appropriate anniversary, or birthday greeting card, a few days before the actual date. You will be surprised at the friends you will make this way, and friends make customers. And there lies the very backbone of any long range merchandising or business development. When the novelty has become the staple, when the spectacular and predatory price cutting has given way to stability, when necessity has replaced the luxury item, when storekeepers have become merchants, then friends, 10 Radio Today