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Gifted Retailer: The Heights Gallery

Quinn Halford -- Gifts and Dec, 5/15/2009 12:00:00 AM

Veteran retailers MITCH and LEE-ANN JANSONIUS established THE HEIGHTS GALLERY in Little Rock, AR, in 1979. Besides selling gifts, jewelry, and greeting cards in their 1,600-square-foot store, the couple also offers original art and crafts created by local artists. Mitch talks about their experience in retailing.

GIFTS & DECORATIVE ACCESSORIES: What do you like best about being a retailer?
MITCH JANSONIUS: I’ve always enjoyed the interaction we have with our customers, both old and new. With our established patrons, our visits have moved way beyond sales transactions to encompass all aspects of each others’ lives. We survive on repeat business and we consider our longtime customers our friends.

G&DA: What was the most valuable piece of business advice that you ever received?
MJ: Don’t take on partners. We were tempted to add real-estate partners in the early 1980s when we bought our building. A potential partner made us realize that we were better off extending ourselves further than we were comfortable doing rather than getting ourselves legally involved in the complicated lives of others. Shortly after we bought our building (by ourselves), that same individual became involved in a messy divorce and lengthy property battle. We were much relieved that we had avoided our involvement in that situation. Had we become involved, we’d probably have lost our building.

G&DA: What is, or was, your most successful promotion?
MJ: Our decision more than 25 years ago to begin a large Christmas event for the final two months of each year, a move not usually associated with a contemporary art gallery. That change of merchandising opened us up to another, entirely different clientele and still brings new shoppers into the store who would otherwise be too intimidated to shop in a “gallery.”

G&DA: What three products or lines are your best sellers?

MJ: It’s impossible to say. We tend to buy small orders from a large and ever-expanding group of vendors, and we usually don’t repeat items from year to year or season to season. Our customers expect fresh items that they’ve not seen before.

G&DA: What has been your most effective display?
MJ: We depend on our front and side foyer windows to attract customers into our store. We change them out a lot, to the point that my customers tease me about how many times a year I repaint. One of our most striking displays was a holiday window that involved twinkling lights behind dark blue translucent fabric to create a night sky, mounds of artificial snow banked in the window, and life-sized sheep sculptures being ridden by stuffed toy frogs in Santa hats.

G&DA: What are you doing to attract new customers?
MJ: Not enough. We have the reputation of being higher-end than we really are. I’m trying to find a way to communicate to our community that we’re a source for high-style, innovative, and fun gifts that are available in a wide price range.

G&DA: How do you find your best employees?
MJ: Other than my wife and me, all our employees are part-time and mostly seasonal. Over the years we have developed a network of people who have other careers and think that it is exciting and fun to work in retail part-time.

G&DA: What was your biggest retail problem and how did you solve it?
MJ: We’ve been lucky that we’ve never really had any huge problems. Other than the usual struggle to stay in business every year, most of our problems have been in the area of unwittingly offending some customers. I’ve always maintained that if you are in business long enough you’re going to offend somebody by simply breathing. All you can do in those cases is to try to make amends and then be as nice as possible in future encounters.

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It is refreshing to hear the honesty of another retailer. Reading this Q. and A. is the highlight of my day!!

Melanie Beverly - 2009-05-20 15:13:00 EDT

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