With Dealer and Customer

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 24, 30 December 1927, Page 3

With Dealer and Customer

Getting Together To Solve Radio Selling Problems

The dealer is out to increase his sales. The prospective buyer wants to get the best possible value for his money. By understanding each other’s viewpoint, dealer and customer can meet on 2 basis of perfect confidence. Should the dealer give demonstrations in the prospective buyer’s home? That is a knotty problem. All dealers will be interested in the article below, which deals with that point, while prospective buyers will see this matter from the viewpoint of the dealer.

TEACH YOUR CUSTOMERS. Do you take it for granted that your customers know how to operate a set? Remember the old days when the mio-tor-car man gave one driving lesson and let it go at that? Ofcourse the present-day type of set, with simplified controls, looks so easy that it seems almost foolish to talk about training people to handle it. But the fact remains that plenty of women and some men are unable to master the complexities of a single dial until they are shown. ‘They are afraid something may go wrong. If the set squeals they jump. Give them a little help in getting acquainted with it and you have made friends. Besides, you should instruct your customers very thoroughly how to connect up the batterits. : $EE THE SET, Radio dealers sheuld not attempt to diagnose troubles in customers’ sets fram, yerbal description. Usually such efforts go wrong, bringing loss of prestige.- Moreover, the customer who comes in with some vague information about a set that is not performing is tog often trying to get free advice when he. ought to pay for an inspection. No good doctor attempts to prescribe without sceing the patient.

HONEST OPINIONS. e Do your customers ask your advice as to whiether to buy batteries or eliminators, this set or that? It is a good sign when they do, but some radio men spoil the opportunity by "hedging." Give your customers the benefit of your honest opinion when they ask it. At the same time, be careful not to put your opinion in such form that it can be twisted into a promise of perforinance or a warranty of merchandise. Make it clear-in other words, that you are voicing your own views, based on experience and expert knowledge-no-thing more.

AS THEY COME. Speaking of handling customers, how many sales have been lost to radio dealets by the needless mistake of waiting on the wrong person first! lt is human nature to resent having to wait while someone else who came later is served. Watch your front door when business begins to get brisk. Take them as they come. WELL-PLACED SETS. Have you ever stopped to consider that the location of a set or a loudspeaker in the average household has a great deal to do witli the extent to which it "will be used? When the matter of locating the installation is left to you put the set where it can conveniently he used during meals, Dinner-time brings the whole family together. GOOD USE OF POSTERS. Some radio shops at this season take on the most unattractive appearance growing out of the habit of hanging, tacking, and standing all around the place the miscellaneous posters, circulars, and other display matter provided by manufacturers. Such material has real valne when used right, but when allowed to accumulate beyond reasonable limits it is about as attractive as a deserted barn covered with plug tobacco advertisements. LOUDSPEAKERS. his season has brought some real improvement in speakers, If in doubt about it, get out and compare some of the other lines with those you are handling. You will find that there is a very wide range, from very good to rather bad, Thus you can check up on what you are selling and determine whether your lines are representative ot the best. ‘There are good and bad cone loudspeakers just as there are excellent atid poor horn-type loudspeakers.

TRASHY GOODS. New Zealand radio trades, if they have any regard for their future success, should not stock anything "cheap and nasty." The sale of such an article inay please the purchaser temporarily with the idea that he has got a bargain, but he will soon discover the thing is a dud and dear at any price. Ue won't come back to your shop. EXHAUSTED BATTERIES. Listeners, don’t spoil your reception by using exhausted "B" batteries. A 45-yolt "B" battery, which is down to 85 or 36 volts, has become useless, and should be discarded. Go to your nearest dealer and get two "heavy service" 45-volt "B" batteries. You will then be able to enjoy all the holiday broadcasting. It would be extremely disappointing to find your batteries run_ down and all the radio shops closed. CLEAN THE BATTERIES. A word to battery service station managers. Never let a battery go back to its owner with the terminals encrusted with sulphate and the top of the celis like a duck pond, I saw a battery delivered to its owner in that condition the other day, after it had been recharged at the service station. his sort of thing evidences carelessness or thoughtlessness. ‘The owner of the battery is entitled to have it returned clean and free from liquid on the top outside. SPARE VALVES HANDY, Multivalve-set owners should always have a spare valve at hand. Valves, like motor tires, are subject to mishap, and it would be decidedly disconcerting to have guests present when ‘one’s set becomes crippled through one of the valyes breaking down. ‘This would be all the more unpleasant if it oceurred during the holidays, when the radio shops are closed.

FLOOD LIGHTS. Lighting and decoration play just as an important part in the merchandising of radio sets as does the music, and since all the music necessary can be obtained from the sets, play up the lighting and decorations. Some American dealers use flood lights equipped with colour shields in the display windows and the interior of the shop, playing them upon the best-looking consoles displayed. ATTRACT ATTENTION, Warm colours are essential in attracting attention, and these can be obtained in the display windows by equipping the flood lights with red, orange, or amber colour shields. In the interior floor and table lamps with coloured shades can be used in the arrangement of the display. Again in the interior of the shop use more gay trimmings, or holly wreaths, and have the shop brightly and artistically decorated. THE HOLIDAYS, It’s well to be ready for some extra demand for batteries, tubes, etc., today. How about a sign in the window? ‘Are your Batteries Ready for the Holidays ?" WHAT DO YOU STOCK? No wise trader fails to stock any article that is in big demand even if there is not much profit in it. The writer was told by a radio dealer re cently, "We don’t stock that line, ‘There’s nothing in it. We don’t think it’s worth while handling." But the "man around the corner did stock that particular line, and those who went there to buy it also purchased other accessories there. It is mown that one dealer bonglit another right out of one line for his own shop because he found it brought other business with it. A knowing bird!

"FREE ENTERTAINMENT." If you make -a_ practice of home demonstrations, this isa good week to put on some extra pressure. But beware of people who want a little free entertainment to please their family or guests, SATISFY THE CUSTOMER, The president of one of America’s largest radio-set manufacturing com poratious says :- "At Christmas time you can find out niore readily than at any other time just how much your customer wishes to spend. Concentrate on the model nearest to that price; don’t bother to tell him how it can be made cheaper: or better. Later we may be able toa sell this customer a more expensive set. But make him stick to one model at Christmas time. If you make him. believe the selection of a radio set' requires a lot of discrimination and judgment he is liable to delay the purchase until time is not so pressing, and a bird in the hand is worth more than two listening to the neighbours brag about their sets." THE FINEST GIFT, Radio dealers should remember that thousands of families regard a radio set as the finest possible Christmas gift. What can we do to stimulate this desire to the point of an actual purchase? What can we do to make « radio set easy and convenient to buy, and most important of all, what can we do to convince those who know xothing about radio that it is the most wonderful invention of to-day, and that it gives never-ending pleasure? And that a radio set is now as easy as a gramophone to manipulate.