Building a Perfect ARCH
by Anya Harris
 The quirky coolness characterizing 32-year-old ARCH Drafting and Graphic Supply in San Francisco starts at its façade. Eight years ago, when Marilyn Hajjar was hired as manager, she had the building painted metallic copper. “It’s so beautiful, it glows,” she said. “When the sun is shining, it just radiates. It’s so easy to tell people how to find us: ‘Just look for the shiny copper building on the corner of Missouri Street and 17th.’ They can’t miss it.”
Many elements of the store make it a natural fit in San Francisco’s bohemian culture: its selection of unique gifts, funky custom-built and reclaimed industrial fixtures, and the friendly dog ambassadors Otto and Barley, who remind neighborhood patrons to bring their own pooches by for “cookies.”
But despite its hip outward appearance and laidback style, the longevity of the store is most likely due to its courteous, knowledgeable staff – most hold degrees in or are studying art or architecture themselves. They’ve helped the store cultivate an extremely loyal following among the architects, designers and artists who make up its core customers.
Susie Coliver, a professional architect, founded the business and still owns it today. The store settled into its present site about 10 years ago after moving from a well-known downtown location, a long, narrow space with tons of built-ins Susie created. “That store was a jewel. It was a beautiful, beautiful piece of architecture,” Marilyn said,
Though locations have changed, many of the fixtures and the store’s core mission to serve local architectural and design professionals, remain the same. Structural shifts within that market, notably the advent of CAD, necessitated the addition of more fine art lines, printmaking and bookbinding supplies, and gifts. The store sells supplies to a large creative community, which includes students at the California College of the Arts, the Academy of Art, the graduate studios for the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Center for the Book (just down the street), the expansive new University of California at San Francisco development project at Mission Bay, and numerous designers and artists with nearby studio space.
The building is about 10,000 square feet with more than 5,000 square feet of sales-floor space and 2,000 square feet of office space. The rest is used for storage of an extensive back stock of items such as portfolios and presentation pieces, plus a very large stock of digital and art papers. Customers can take advantage of non-metered on-street parking and seven spaces in a nearby lot. A loading dock near the main door makes it easy to pack vehicles with large purchases.
The store employs six full-timers including Marilyn, all of whom are cross-trained to do just about everything needed on the sales floor. There’s a primary buyer for art lines, another for gifts, plus two others who split the purchasing of architectural materials such as boards and model-making supplies. Marilyn also buys several lines and scouts out new products at NAMTA, CHA and distributor workshops. Two more full-time employees work in the office, and three part-timers fill in on sales.
Owner Susie goes into the store occasionally, but she and her husband maintain a busy architectural practice – one reason she brought Marilyn in as manager. The two women became friends after they met in the late ’80s. At the time, Marilyn owned an art store in the East Bay. In 1990, she sold her business and began working for Pacific Art and Design Materials, covering northern California and northern Nevada. When that business sold 13 years later, she joined ARCH.
Marilyn majored in painting and design at Carnegie-Mellon University and has been teaching life drawing classes for about 30 years. Her experience as an artist has shaped her approach to retail sales, which she says is all about interaction and problem solving. She asks customers about their projects, what materials they’re using and what problems they are experiencing. Engaging in these conversations has created some unique opportunities for the store. “People come in who are creating new product, and will use our store as a test market of sorts. Our buyers can help them put together the right materials for what they’re developing. Then, we’ll take an exclusive,” said Marilyn. “To have that sort of indispensable quality about the store is just wonderful. It’s just one of many ways our product expertise pays off.”
ARCH maintains a website, www.archsupplies.com, but it is not an online store. “We want to keep our business face-to-face. Artists are like junkies in that they can’t get enough of new products, always want more and will stockpile them, even if they don’t have a specific purpose in mind at the time they buy. I want them to try out the brushes, feel the paper, and talk with us about the different qualities of paints. We will take orders over the phone and by e-mail, but our goal is to get shoppers into the store because it’s truly an experience,” explained Marilyn. “We may be working against ourselves by not having that kind of online presence, but we think our way is a better way to sell art products. When customers are in your store, you have the opportunity to generate companion sales. You’re not just handing them a pencil. Instead, you’re handing them all the supplies they need to get a project done, a finished piece of art just waiting to be put together.”
Despite their stance on e-commerce, ARCH has developed an unusual reputation among artists and designers around the world who shop for high-quality, hard-to-find and beautiful materials and gifts. “The store’s reputation is a draw,” Marilyn noted. “It results in occasional busloads of tourists. When that happens, we suddenly have 30 people just devouring the store. We have loyal customers around the world, many of whom have been in the design community for a number of years. They will call us to have us ship them supplies. Similarly, a lot of our commercial accounts never come into the store; they just call in their orders, and we package them up and send them out by courier.”
Within their local community, ARCH remains visible by sponsoring events and hosting book signings and demos. Marilyn frequently appears at student and community events. During The Roadworks Steamroller event, a popular annual street fair put on by the San Francisco Center for the Book, that features artists creating large-format linoleum prints with the aid of – yes – a steamroller, Marilyn sells supplies she brings from the store. She also hands out coupons, giving the fair’s onlookers incentive to walk down the street and shop. By the same token, coupons are distributed at the store to encourage customers to stop by the fair.
Except for 10 percent to students and instructors, ARCH does not offer discounts, preferring not to compete with places that discount heavily. “We don’t own our building, so rent is a huge expense, and we pay our employees well, with benefits,” said Marilyn. “Our overhead is high, so we have to maintain as good a margin as possible.”
They price very carefully. Membership in iAMart, a national cooperative of 40 independent AM stores that negotiates special pricing deals from distributors and manufacturers, helps ARCH remain price competitive. In addition, members of the cooperative collaborate to share best practices. Incidentally, Marilyn is in her second term as president of the group.
“We try to help people understand that because we’re not a big box or a chain, our store doesn’t look mass market, and we’re very selective about what we carry,” Marilyn added. “We stand behind everything we sell and try to maintain a one-on-one relationship with each customer. We encourage everyone in the community to shop locally.”
At ARCH, they strive to give customers everything on the lists they bring in, and then present more items that they hadn’t considered. “I don’t want customers to leave the store because we don’t have half of what they need.” Her approach recently paid off when she demonstrated Pan pastels for two artist shoppers. “They had never seen them before, and then between the two of them, they bought almost every color we carry – probably 40!
“The best way to thrill people is to give them what they didn’t know they needed.” |
