Mahoning Valley Businesses Help Santa Fill His Sack
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Want to hang one of the works from the collection of the Butler Institute of American Art in your living room or foyer?
The originals, even if they were for sale, might be beyond most people’s price range, but custom-made prints of the thousands of works in the Butler are among the offerings available at Rudinec & Associates, North Lima. Joe Rudinec’s shop is just one of the many options available to holiday shoppers looking for the perfect gift for that special someone.
Business doesn’t pick up for holidays as much as his customer base shifts, Rudenic says.
“We do more ones and twos over the holidays,” he relates. For most of the year, bulk orders of prints – in the hundreds or thousands – are more common. Such prints typically are gifts from one spouse to the other.
In addition to works from the Butler’s collection, Rudinec can also reproduce prints from a small number of museums around the country as well as the White House, he reports.
Pricing is based on size and the materials used, and sizing can be done in increments of inches, says Cindy Perorazio, project manager.
A framed, standard-size print on canvas usually runs $375. A framed print on fine-art paper -- textured like watercolor paper, with a matte finish and requiring matting and an acrylic cover -- runs $450.
“That would be one that a lot of the museums use,” she says.
For those who think their recipients would prefer to capture their own scenes, poses and portraits, rather than someone else’s – even Norman Rockwell’s “Lincoln the Railsplitter” – photography equipment is a popular gift.
Black Friday, the day that follows Thanksgiving, is the “single-best day of the year” at YM Camera, Boardman, reports owner Jim Yankush.
“December is probably a solid two months combined into one,” he says. “We stay pretty consistent year-round but this time of the year it really picks up.”
The prevalence of cellphone cameras has prompted a shift in the photography industry, Yankush says. While such phones have “cannibalized” the $100 point-and-shoot camera segment – some customers remain in this range – unhappiness with the quality of the photos taken, particularly indoor shots, is driving customers to purchase higher-priced equipment, he observes.
One market segment doing extremely well is what he describes as the “new generation of professional photographers,” namely “the soccer moms that have taken it to the next level.”
The focus of the camera shop – the only Nikon professional dealership in the area, Yankush says – is single-lens-reflex cameras, which use interchangeable lenses. YM Camera often has promotions that offer two-lens Nikon and Canon kits in the $500 range.
“There’s huge growth in $2,000, $3,000 cameras,” Yankus adds. “These cameras have the same sensor as a 35 mm camera, so the bigger the sensor the better picture quality.”
For customers who might be more comfortable with purchasing from Amazon, YM Camera’s Nikon prices are the same as on that online site.
“You will not pay more,” Yankush says. “We actually sell on Amazon, too, which has brought us quite a bit of growth.”
Another option for holiday givers is providing an experience, such as dance lessons.
“It’s everybody’s favorite gift,” asserts Travis Manero, co-owner and manager of Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Boardman. “It’s a really nice gift because it creates memories and you create a skill and those kinds of things.”
Often it’s a husband surprising his wife with lessons, or a couple might jointly decide to give themselves a gift of dance lessons.
The studio offers an introductory lesson for $25, Manero says. The smallest package runs $250 and consists of four private lessons, a group class and a dance party.
“We have students who have been with us for years,” he says. “So many benefits go with it.”
The studio has social events and participates in competitions to which students travel and, Manero points out, the health benefits such physical activity offers add to the enjoyment.
Then there are the people who give presents that can’t be set under the holiday tree. Even Santa doesn’t have that large a sack.
At the Fred Martin Ford and Mercedes Benz dealership in Austintown, its owner and president, Fred Martin, reports that about a dozen vehicles a year are delivered to houses – often with big red bows, sometimes on Christmas Eve, occasionally on Christmas morning.
The dealership tends to deliver Mercedes as Christmas presents more than Fords.
“It’s an exciting time for the people. A new car is a pretty good Christmas gift, no matter what it is,” Martin remarks.
Usually the vehicle is a present from a husband to a wife. “I can’t think of any time when it wasn’t,” he adds.
Some of that holiday activity takes place after Christmas, Martin notes. Shoppers, some of whom received money, visit the dealership to spend it on a new car or truck.
Dealers need to move cars and trucks off their lots for tax reasons, so Martin’s dealership hosts its IRS – for “Inventory Reduction Sale” – at year end. “That has been very successful for us,” he says.
The dealership usually sells 75 to 80 vehicles between Dec. 26 and 31 and Martin expects to do as well this year.
Another dealer, Sweeney Chevrolet-Buick-GMC in Boardman, got an early start this month on its Black Friday promotion, kicking it off “way early” in November, reports the company’s president, Doug Sweeney.
“All the incentives we were going to have for [Black Friday] are in effect now,” he says. Those include “tremendous lease deals” and 0% financing, and in some cases multiple incentives, depending on the vehicle.
Like Martin, Sweeney notes the dealership needs to reduce inventory before the end of the year. “The customer is really going to win because there’s so much inventory we need to sell,” he says.
The holiday season is usually a productive time for the dealership, Sweeney says. In many cases vehicles are bought as Christmas gifts – “in more cases than we realize” – although shoppers are aware of the advantages the year-end purchases offer. “There’s certainly some business tax advantages for some trucks and company cars,” he says.
“They’re looking for their typical vehicle – not a special vehicle, just whatever they want,” he adds. Often, a customer’s lease might be close to expiring or the family might need a larger car because it’s growing. In some cases, a business needs a new truck.
People give greater scrutiny to buying an SUV when snow begins to fall and stick to the ground, Sweeney has found. Such vehicles “help them more in snow,” he says.
Pictured: Joe Rudinec, owner of Rudinec & Associates, North Lima, with one of the oil prints his company makes.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition and to our free daily email headlines.