Special Vendor Feature Section

For the Past 75 Years (From page 34)

Adler, Inc. designs their limited editions. Kurt Adler now has over 7.000 SKUs and they change out about 40% every year. The internet has, of course, had an impact on the business. Interestingly, internet customers not only want what is new, but also want to continue to see the old, popular designs.

Kurt was fortunate that his children wanted to continue the business. Sons Howard and Clifford are co-presidents and daughter Karen is the CFO. Another son, Richard, is peripherally involved. Howard’s three children are now involved as well. Howard said, “We all get along really well but we also all have different areas of focus. We complement each other.”

The company is best known for ornaments and nutcrackers but also sells novelty lights, treetops, stockings, trees, nativity sets and everything else you can imagine for Christmas. It is a one-stop shop for Christmas. The second largest category of product is Halloween but that’s still only about 2% of the business. They also developed the Fabriché Santas, a line of fabric mache ornaments and table pieces. Other ornaments and décor are made of plastic, resin, decoupage, wood, metal, glass, or some combination. There are about 70 employees in the NYC office but there are showrooms around the country and a warehouse in New Jersey. Currently, the main manufacturing facilities are in China, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines, however, product is sourced from another dozen countries as well.

Another growth area for the company is custom products – a business or organization wants an ornament specific to them. Greek letter organizations have been a new addition. Sometimes a business such as Hershey already has licensed products but also wants a custom product for its hotel or amusement park. Howard pointed out that a nice feature of the custom business is that those customers tend to return year after year.

Of course, Kurt S. Adler, Inc. has felt the impact of COVID. Retail was shut down and summer tourists who often visit Christmas shops at tourist destinations were way off. Ballet companies weren’t buying nutcrackers as they had no performances of “The Nutcracker.” Fortunately, the internet was extremely strong and made up some of the loss. So far in 2021, orders are pretty strong.

When asked if the company had special plans for the anniversary, Howard replied, “We’re working as hard as ever to keep it going.” With the third generation taking its place at Kurt Adler and, as Howard said, “knowing social media and the internet,” the future continues to look merry.

(For more information, visit www.kurtadler.com.)