Firms hang it up every Christmas

Lighting installers also take it down, store it for clients

Kyle Marino, an employee of Christmas Decor of Northwest Arkansas, decorates a magnolia tree in front of a home on East Bridgewater Lane in Fayetteville.
Kyle Marino, an employee of Christmas Decor of Northwest Arkansas, decorates a magnolia tree in front of a home on East Bridgewater Lane in Fayetteville.

— David Gretzmier, owner of Lighting Masters, thinks a home’s Christmas lights should evoke an emotional response.

“You should feel it when you pull into your driveway and look at your home. It should remind you of that special Christmas,” he said.

Gretzmier’s Fayettevillebased business will be stringing a lot of lights and stirring a lot of memories this Christmas season. With 250 residential and commercial clients in the region, he’ll have four crews and about 15 employees working as the Christmas season gets into full swing.

Gretzmier said his first Christmas lighting job was at age 14, for $200. He’s operated a Christmas-lighting installation company in Northwest Arkansas since 2001.

Lighting Masters begins installation as early as Sept. 15, with takedowns beginning in January.

It is one of several companies around the state that install Christmas lights at homes and businesses. Usually, as part of the service, the lights are stored during the off-season. Many firms also offer decorating consultation.

The National Retail Federation’s holiday consumer spending survey, conducted by BIG Insight, shows the average shopper will spend $51.99 on decorations, including Christmas lights. That’s up from $49.15 last year and the highest amount in the survey’s history. Total spending on all types of decor is projected to reach $6.9 billion.

According to Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress, Thomas Edison, the inventor of the first light bulb, also is credited with inventing the first strand of electric lights, in 1880.

Edward H. Johnson, Edison’s friend and partner, was the first to put a string of lights and a Christmas tree together, in 1882.

But Albert Sadacca is credited with the commercial success of Christmas lights, according to the Library of Congress article. In 1917, while still a teenager, Sadacca suggested the family’s noveltylight company begin to sell brightly colored lights. By the 1920s, Sadacca and his brothers had organized the NOMA Electric Co., which dominated the U.S. Christmas-light market until the 1960s.

Today, most Christmas lights are imported from China, according to data provided by Dallas-based American Lighting Association. In 2011, 45.31 million Christmas lights of all types were imported, about 2 million more than in 2010.

Jim Sadler, a counselor with the Little Rock SCORE office, said most Christmaslight installers in the state are seasonal, independent small businesses. SCORE, a nonprofit organization staffed by volunteers, offers advice to new and established smallbusiness owners.

“The key competitor for the lighting installer isn’t another installer, it’s the guy who puts up his own lights. Or the guy who has a strong son-in-law to do it for him,” Sadler said.

To be successful, Sadler said, a Christmas-light installation company must have a strong sales component and a good website, and use other social media to attract customers. Liability insurance and workers’ compensation insurance are also key expenses that must be considered.

Abby Carmen, sales director for Little Rock-based Arkansas Holiday Lighting, said the Christmas-lighting installation business is growing. The company serves the Little Rock area and has 50 residential clients and picked up several municipal clients this year, including downtown Little Rock and the cities of Sherwood and Cabot.

“We are swamped,” she said.

She said this is the fifth year Arkansas Holiday Lighting has been in operation. In the off-season, the company’s owners run Buzz-Free of Arkansas, which sells misting systems that eliminate mosquitos.

“The lighting business allows us to keep our workers employed full time all year,” she said.

She said the company uses two crews of four workers each. Residential lights start to go up after Nov. 5 but really pick up between Thanksgiving and Dec. 14, she said.

Arkansas Holiday Lighting’s customers buy their lights, but they’re stored by the company. Carmen said the lights are all LEDs — light-emitting diodes — and are under warranty.

“When you’re going to invest in something you want it to last a long time,” she said.

Some light installers are franchisees.

Trent Ragar of Christmas Decor of Northwest Arkansas has owned a franchise in Rogers since 2007. He also runs a Scotts Lawn Service most of the year.

Ragar’s crews begin putting up lights the last week in October and things stay busy until Dec. 10 or so.

“We’re about halfway done,” he said in a late November interview.

Christmas Decor offers design services, and Ragar said he has a full menu of lights, decorations and displays for customers to choose from. He said he uses only LEDs, saying they’re more energyefficient and attractive.

Texas-based Christmas Decor began its franchise operation in the early 1990s and operates in more than 350 markets in 48 states and Canada, said Brandon Stephens, company president.

Stephens said Christmas Decor is the largest Christmas-light installation franchiser in the U.S., with more than 45,000 clients and about $55 million in annual sales systemwide. He said the company adds about 15 to 35 new franchisees each year.

He said most of the company’s franchisees are in some sort of seasonal work, usually landscaping, lawn maintenance, roofing or pest control.

Franchisees get access to training for installation, marketing, sales and pricing advice, along with contractorquality products. They also are schooled in key design techniques, he said.

“We think about Christmas lighting all year round,” Stephens said. “Come October, they [the franchisees] can flick the Christmas switch and get started.”

The lighting and decorations Ragar offers are leased by the client and stored in Lowell, south of Rogers. Every aspect of the installation and takedown is handled by the Christmas Decor crew.

“It’s a hassle-free experience,” Ragar said.

He said prices vary widely from house to house, but a small home with a low roofline might be charged as little as $500 while a top-end home may cost as much as $10,000. He said homes average between $1,200 and $1,500.

Business, Pages 61 on 12/02/2012

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