Georgia Lighting: Masters of Light

Staff -- Home Accents Today, 11/1/2004

Harry Gilham founded Georgia Lighting in 1960 with three employees. Seven years later he founded World Imports, the manufacturing arm of his company, and more than 40 years later Georgia Lighting is one of the nation's largest lighting companies and a leading importer of lighting fixtures. Its flagship store on 14th Street in Atlanta is the largest lighting showroom in the Southeast.

This success drew the attention of another Atlanta-based business and in 1999 The Home Depot came courting and Gilham sold Georgia Lighting. At that time there were 250 employees and about $40 million in revenue. Gilham remained as president of the wholly owned subsidiary until his retirement in 2001.

Today, Georgia Lighting has locations in Atlanta and two suburbs, Snellville and Roswell, and its product mix includes much, much more than lighting.

Natalie Gordon started with the company as an executive assistant about the time it was bought by Home Depot. She quickly moved into a buyer position and trained for several years under everyone from Gilham himself to the other buyers. She is responsible for buying everything from portable lamps, furniture and mirrors to prints/oils, permanent botanicals, decorative accessories and more.

Judging a store by its name, one would assume Georgia Lighting sells lighting and that's it — but you know the old adage about judging a book by its cover. This previous ART award-nominee does sell a lot of lighting and its main focus is lighting, but high-end shoppers also will find a plethora of vendors in everything from accent furniture and decorative accessories to wall decor, decorative hardware, hardware, furniture and more. Gordon says while the stores used to carry a lot of antiques they've scaled back and now carry more reproductions, which are big sellers. They do a hefty business in antique lighting as well.

"We're unique in a lot of ways," she said. "We use a lot of vendors. We just recently hired a new visual display person and he's done a lot for the store. Another thing that sets us apart from other lighting showrooms is that all of our associates are ALA-certified."

Georgia Lighting uses advertising to promote itself as a brand and to convey an image rather than touting sales. The company spends about 2% of its budget on ads from newspaper inserts to magazines like Veranda, Southern Living and Southern Accents. Gordon says the shelter magazine ads they run really pay off, as does the company's participation in the Southern Living Idea House and events with Georgia homebuilders groups.

"We still get calls about products that ran in those magazines nine years ago," Gordon said. "People hold on to them and still use them. Shelter publications are a great medium for us."

Slow-moving merchandise is subjected to a markdown system. Every 30 days product is marked down 10% until it sells and twice a year the stores have a sale.

Aside from the affluent consumer, Georgia Lighting enjoys a healthy business not only from interior designers, a business they'd like to grow, but also from architects and builders. The stores offer services like lighting and layout design, delivery, arranging for installations and chandelier repair and cleaning.

They've changed the product mix to include more than lighting, especially lately as more and more companies, like Target and other Big Box stores, are getting into the lighting business.

"We're trying to distinguish ourselves with our mix," she said. "We carry mid- to high-end items and because we're smaller than the Big Boxes, we can get the latest styles in quickly and create a lot of excitement and buzz with our customers. We also listen to our customers and respond. We were getting a lot of requests for European pieces, so we began importing those looks. We're making a concerted effort to get back into more design-driven, quality pieces, because that's what our customer is looking for."

Though the core styles throughout all categories are traditional, Georgia Lighting offers some transitional and contemporary lines, though Gordon says they'll never go deep into that because so many other stores carry those products at much lower price points.

"We don't do a lot of contemporary because everyone is doing that and consumers can pick up inexpensive contemporary at Target," she said. "We aren't going to compete on that level."

Product is set in vignettes and is grouped by category like bath, exterior, high-end crystal, and also by lifestyles like lodge, garden, transitional, Asian, contemporary and primitive, a new category Gordon is growing. Within those vignettes they show all product categories because the focus is on a particular theme, but regardless of the display there always will be a chandelier or lighting product.

The company has sales meetings every Tuesday to keep employees abreast of new product and other information, but Gordon says one thing vendors could do to make her job easier would be to supply in-store sales associates with catalogs and binders for updates and drops.

"We do a lot of special orders from catalogs, so having more of them to work from would be great," she said.

Between markets Gordon shops through reps, catalogs and a few Web sites. Before markets she meets with each of the store managers to find out what's selling and what they're looking for. She goes to markets armed with a spreadsheet full of this information. She shops her established vendors then covers other showrooms looking for new product, making notes and taking pictures of everything she likes.

There are other buyers for the company as well, Jeff Lee covers antiques and furniture, Phil Sherer buys hardware, Roxanne Todd buys bath, exterior, fans, bulbs and some decorative and Susie Adams oversees them all. The buyers attend the Dallas and High Point, N.C., markets twice a year, and after the shows, discuss what they've seen and make purchasing decisions.

"Switching to reproductions instead of antiques was a great idea," Gordon said. "Also, carrying the antique lighting has been good for us. We even have a person on staff who refurbishes them."

In the last couple years Gordon has started carrying more accent furniture. She says it makes the store look great and serves as impulse buys.

"We cater to a higher end clientele, especially in the 14th Street location, our flagship store," Gordon said. "For them, the furniture we carry is an impulse buy sometimes. It's been a good decision for us."

The worst idea was when they tried to bring in some small lower-ticket items that ended up being more maintenance than they were worth. But the advantage of being a smaller retailer allows for these bumps in the road and the ability to react quicker.

"Setting ourselves a part from the recent abundance of competition in the lighting arena is a big challenge for us," Gordon said.

Also, like many retailers, striking a balance between being overstocked and understocked can be difficult.

"Another challenge is catering to three very different buyers," she said. "The designer, retail customer and builders/architects. They're all looking for something a little different and require different levels of service."

The visual display person has the challenge of creating vignettes with multiple entry points because with lighting showrooms, the customer is constantly looking up to see product.

As for advice, Gordon says testing products before diving into them deeply is a good idea.

"We're small enough that we can bring in a handful of a product, whether it's the style or color of the moment, and judge how our customers respond to it before we buy deeply," she said. "Our size also lets us respond more quickly to our customers' wants and needs."

With this display GL is able to gain some nontraditional customers, because these pieces are unique and transitional, and they can be used in almost any setting. This look has become a hot category for GL.

This room is an example of incorporating high-end product with eclectic accents for an elegant statement.

Though chandeliers are in abundance, the focus of this display is the massive hutch dressed with plates and decorative accents. The hutch tells its own story on its hangtag, which reads; "A unique scullery pine English hutch. It was used 'below stairs' by the servants in what must have been a large and important estate. Circa 1860."

Accent furniture and decorative accents play an important role in the lifestyle vignettes, as well as offering impulse buys for the well-heeled clientele.

More functional items like bathroom fixtures draw retail customers and designers, as well as builders and architects.

GL carries the things to make a house a home, like furniture, lighting and accents, as well as the things that make a house, like ceiling fans, light bulbs and a wide selection of hardware.