The Art Shop was recently featured in a small business profile in the Triad Business Journal, the leading publication devoted to business , in the Greensboro, High Point Winston-Salem area.
The entire article is below. We hope you will take a few moments to learn more about our storied 108 year history.
Friday, September 28, 2007
For art's sake: Framing shop developed an eye for selling art
The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area - by Mark Tosczak The Business Journal Serving the Greater Triad Area
Shown: Lenny and Arlene Dolin (left) and Gallery Director Andy McAfee.
The Art Shop in Greensboro, which is owned by Arlene and Lenny Dolin, has seen the core of its business go from the traditional framing of artwork to selling collectible art and catering to people who want original paintings.
About 10 years ago, The Art Shop began to transform itself.
The framing shop had long sold art, but with the addition of Gallery Director Andy McAfee, who had a degree in arts marketing, the staff began to stock collectible art, including pieces costing thousands of dollars. They also began catering to people who wanted original paintings, sculptures and other pieces in their homes and offices.
It wasn't the first time the venerable Greensboro retailer had remade itself. Since first opening its doors in 1899, The Art Shop has done this several times.
It has always framed pictures as a major part of its business. But there have also been periods when, for two or three decades, it also offered other products and services. From the 1930s through the early 1960s, for example, it was a major seller of photography equipment and supplies. From the early 1970s through the early 1990s, it was art supplies.
In 1997, about eight years after the husband-and-wife team Lenny and Arlene Dolin bought the business from Lenny Dolin's father, the Dolins hired Andy McAfee and began reshaping the business yet again.
"Andy came on board in '97 with an art background that I didn't have and that's when we really started to focus on the gallery and bring in some national and international artists," Lenny Dolin says. "That's really when the current growth started."
In its latest incarnation, fine art is the order of the day. Since 1997, art sales have exploded at the shop, growing about 15-fold until they now are a bigger part of the business than the traditional framing -- though that, too, has grown, as the shop frames much of the art it sells.
"The percentage of business, where it used to be 75 percent framing and 25 percent art, it's now completely reversed where it's now 70, 75 percent art and 25 percent framing," Lenny Dolin says.
A few years ago the company built a brand new shop, designing it from the ground up as a gallery. Their shop has won national art-industry awards for its design.
Brief history
The Art Shop was born in 1899 in downtown Greensboro, originally housed in a building that no longer exists at the corner of Elm and Market streets. It operated downtown until 1972, when it moved out to West Market Street to a site close to its current location in a small shopping center.
Dolin's father bought the business in 1964, and he in turn bought it from his father in 1989. In the early 1990s, the Dolins phased out the art supply part of the business.
They were selling art, but it was only about a quarter of their total sales, and the Dolins admit they didn't know much about art.
"We always had art, but it was a very eclectic (mix) and a mishmash of various things, everything from local art to an occasional Salvador Dali," Lenny Dolin says. "If it was pretty we'd buy it."
In 1997 McAfee, whose degree is in art marketing, was working for a local artist and looking to make a change. The Dolins hired him and they started talking.
"Andy came along and said we need to focus on the collectible part of the business," Lenny Dolin says. "That was the best thing we ever did."
Still, there were challenges. Most really successful fine art galleries are located in places like Florida and Hawaii, vacation spots that ensure the stores receive lots of foot traffic. Though Greensboro has an arts community, it's still tough, relatively speaking, to build a business as a fine arts gallery.
But something else was happening in the late 1990s that was to change the dynamic for The Art Shop: The Internet.
Internet sales
In the last few years The Art Shop has built a Web site for itself, as well as for some of the major artists whose works it sells, and built up a significant online marketing program.
"It's a completely different business in the way we spend our days now then 10 years ago," Lenny Dolin says. "I used to spend a lot of time building frames and fitting pieces together. And now I spend my time putting new images on the Web site and writing e-newsletters and that sort of thing."
The shop's Web sites -- both its own and the ones it builds to highlight specific artists -- enable it to reach people outside the Triad who otherwise might never know The Art Shop even exists.
The Art Shop sells paintings, sculpture and other works -- both originals, as well limited-edition reproductions, such as prints. For original works, prices are typically in the low thousands, though they can vary substantially. Their customers include individual collectors who buy works for their homes, as well as businesses looking to add an artistic touch to their offices.
Even expensive art work will often sit in the company's inventory for a year or longer before it's sold.
As a result, about half of the art the company sells is now sold online to customers across the country and, sometimes, around the world. Although most of the shop's framing business is still local, the Internet has even helped grow that part of the business.
"We've picked up some big clients through our Web site that drive up here from South Carolina, Virginia, Raleigh, that want us to do their framing," Lenny Dolin says.
But despite the importance of technology, an attentive, personalized approach to customer service is still vital.
'Second to none'
"Their customer service is second to none," says Joe Rebo, a Jamestown manufacturer's representative who first started doing business with The Art Shop about 20 years ago when he needed some posters framed.
He started buying original art about seven or eight years ago, he says. McAfee, he says, knows his taste in art and will look for pieces while at art shows that he might like.
The Art Shop also allows Rebo and other customers to borrow pieces for a few days that they're thinking about buying, just so they can decide whether or not they like the way a particular painting looks on their walls.
Amanda McConaha, an account executive in Los Angeles with Studio Fine Art, who helps distribute artists' work to galleries, says The Art Shop's promotions, like the events they hold periodically where they fly in an artist, "are just fantastically run."
"We really trust them," she says. "We just couldn't ask for a better gallery."
Company Profile
Name: The Art Shop
Address: 3900-A W. Market St., Greensboro 27407
Phone: (336) 855-8500
No. of employees: 10
Year established: 1899
Biggest problem: Being located outside of traditional tourist areas where a retail store would get a lot of foot traffic.
Solution: Use the Internet to market the shop outside the Triad
Who's in Charge
Name: Lenny Dolin
Title: Co-owner
Education: Bachelor's of journalism, University of South Carolina, 1976
Best business decision: Hiring Andy McAfee to develop the collectible art business
Goal yet to be achieved: Developing the corporate business
Family: Married to Arlene; two children, 20 and 25
Favorite way to spend free time: Playing tennis
Favorite book read in the past year: "Lance Armstrong's War: One Man's Battle Against Fate, Fame, Love, Death, Scandal And a Few Other Rivals on the Road to the Tour de France," by Daniel Coyle
Person who's had the most influence in his life: Arlene Dolin
Name: Arlene Dolin
Title: Co-owner
Education: Bachelor's of journalism, University of South Carolina, 1975
Favorite way to spend free time: Playing tennis, reading, entertaining friends
Favorite book read in the past year: "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Person who's had the most influence in her life: Lenny Dolin
Hessam will be unveiling his newest originals and limited editions in person. Friday night's invitation-only catered reception will be a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. There will be fine wines and heavy hors d'oeuvres.
in public and private collections world-wide. 
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