The Portland daily press., 1893-03-20
RETAIL PRICES VARY.
How Some People Get Big Discounts
in New York City.

I If You Have q Relative or Friend In Some
| Lines of Trade In the Metropolis, You
Can Save Hundreds of Dollars Every
| Year IF You Buy Right.
One of the curiosities of retail business
| in New York is the system Of discounts
granted to all sorts of persons and for all
sorts of reasons. Nobody has ever dis
covered the point at which discounts
cease in the book trade. Some retail
booksellers frankly quote the publishers
price, and beside it the selling price,
which is from 10 to % per cent less.
Those who know the ropes never buy
books without claiming the discount.
There are special discounts to clergymen,
to authors, to artists, to teachers, and
generally to what somebody has called
the academic classes. After that there
are still greater discounts to few other
favored persons. There are men who pro-
fess to buy books in small quantities at
40 per cent below publishers prices.
What is true of books is true Of almost
everything else that is bought and sold.
When the article is costly one, the dis
count gets to be absurdly large. The
trade in diamonds and jewels, among a
peculiar class of dealers, is a thing with
out bottom. Nobody can tell where the
discounts cease, since such things pass
from hand to hand at prices governed
often by the needs of a temporarily en-
barrassed seller.
| In the piano trade, in which there
were recently rumors Of combination,
the matter of discounts has become
byword. It is doubtful whether any
one ever buys a piano at catalogue
| price. One firm advertises pianos at
from $3.50 to 81 200, according to quality,
but delivers them in New York at from
$3.50 to $800-that is, to the ordinary
customer. There is further reduction
of 10 per cent to teachers or to persons
| buying two or more pianos. One firm
advertises the "list' price of square
pianos at $1,000; price by installment,
$3.50; price for cash, $500. You may
buy a grand piano at any price from
$500 to 81, $780, But nobody pays the
latter price, since the same piano may be
had for the asking at 81 200. Upright
pianos are catalogued at prices varying
from $3.50 to 81, 800, but they may be had
for cash at from $s75 to $1,045.
| A few dealers of well established rep
utation resist the system of discounts,
but all sorts Of insiduous methods of APP
proach are employed, and the price is
seldom insisted upon. Some dealers
gravely exhibit books showing the record
of sales and prices, and protest that there
is no departing from rates. These books,
however, do not show the fact that in
many instances secondhand pianos have
been taken in part payment at high
appraisement. When piano dealer has
reached the last ditch and made defiant
stand, the device of demanding high
appraisement on a secondhand piano
given in part payment usually fetches
him. The receipted bill always shows
that the new piano has been placed at
the full rate with the usual discount.
The devices of manufacturers with re-
putations yet to make are almost of
desperate sort. With the slightest en-
couragement they will place pianos on
trial in any respectable looking house or
apartment. The unwilling purchaser re-
ceives profuse assurances of esteemed
consideration and is prayed to be at ease
as to the time of full payment. Any rea-
sonable demand as to terms is conceded,
and the seller seems SO anxious for moth
ing as to add another debtor to his list.
The result of all this is that no careful
person purchases piano without taking
advice. He goes about it solemnly as he
would in buying horse or house or in
taking a wife, When the purchasers
own powers of persuasion have been ex-
hausted, he calls in a music teacher and
gets further reduction or purchases
through a friend who has recently
bought for himself. Sometimes the
music teacher gets a commission all to
himself. When the music teacher is not
successful in obtaining the most favor
able terms, some person in kindred line
Of business to that of the piano dealer is
invoked, and the purchase is finally made
at from $500 to $500 under schedule
price.
The opposite phenomenon is observed
in the sewing machine trade. Since the
original patents expired all sorts of in
dispensable appliances have been patent
ed, and the manufacturers and dealers in
the best machines exact the uttermost
penny for these latter. In some instance
a device costs 10 times the price at which
it can be produced, and all the various ap-
purtenances taken together make up
large percentage of the price at which
tie machine is sold. Even secondhand
machines complete" are held at stiff
rates.
To the trade on some articles of house
furnishing there is seemingly no bottom
price. Women, who are VIGOROUSLY the
best bargainers, go to wholesale houses
and upon one pretext or another obtain
discounts that bring prices far below re-
tail prices. Dealers cheerfully send ar
ticles miles in the country on trial, take
back slightly damaged goods, pack and
repack and at length smilingly accept
payment with all sorts of discounts.
What ia tr11e of new fT1rnitI11e ia still