Creating a Web Site to Market Old Fashioned Products to People Who Don T Use Electricity

Lehman's - 1

[Business Development/Marketing & Selling]

Who's Hot: Lehman's

Hed: The Simple Life

Deck: Lehman's old-economy business has found a profitable home on the Internet

Summary: Lehman's started out selling non-electric products to Amish and Mennonite customers, but has grown and changed with the times. Now consumers flock to its Web site for dependable old fashioned, goods.

Pull quote: "It's important to supply products to the local community. Other people don't know about us until they need us, and then they're glad we're here." – J. E. "Jay" Lehman, founder, Lehman's

Using a Web site to market products designed for people who don’t use electricity may seem paradoxical, but Lehman’s thinks the Internet is a great place to promote its business. Founded in Kidron, Ohio, in 1955 by J. E. Lehman, the company's first customers came from Amish communities in Kidron and nearby Holmes County, and from northeastern Ohio's slightly more worldly Mennonite communities.

But times have changed. Due to the company's growth over the past 46 years, the Amish now make up only 10 percent of its customer base. Today the business serves a variety of back-to-basics types including homesteaders, home-schoolers, survivalists and missionaries, plus consumers interested in well-made, old-fashioned, products.

The change in market and the burgeoning of e-commerce made it essential – and perfectly natural -- for Lehman's to put its business on the Web. Even people who don't have electricity at home can access the Internet at libraries and cyber cafés. Each week the site draws 10,000 unique users looking for items such as cast-iron frying pans, solid maple toboggans, grain mills, medicated soaps, oil lamps, natural cleaning supplies, blacksmithing tools, cheese making equipment and post-hole diggers.

To augment its own Web site, in 1998 Lehman's purchased Countrylife.net, where visitors can read about simpler lifestyles and leave messages on discussion boards with topics such as "bakery" and "livestock." Product advertisements link surfers directly to Lehman's site.

"We sell high-quality, unique, practical products that you can't find anywhere else," says Glenda Lehman Ervin, the founder's daughter and Lehman's marketing director. "Plus we give service. When you buy something from us, our employees tell you how to use it."

Getting Started Lehman's - 2

Now 72, "Jay" Lehman was born in a farmhouse in Kidron, population 630, about an hour's drive south of Cleveland. By the time he was 26 he had traveled all over the world and was ready to settle down. His dream was to run a hardware store, and in 1955 he found one for sale in his hometown.

In keeping with his Mennonite preference for living a simple life, and his location near Holmes County -- the largest Amish settlement in the world -- Lehman was determined to stock only products that required no electricity. The Amish do not drive cars nor use electricity. Most Mennonites – including Lehman's family members – do, and are committed to pacifism, missionary work and good land husbandry.

Lehman started his business with "the foresight to look to the past," Ervin says. He had two goals: first, to meet the unique needs of the Amish and others striving to live more simply and self-sufficiently, and second, to put pleasing people above making profits.

"Lehman's service is outstanding," says Kelle Ventling, a customer from Billings, Mont., who has bought a wind-up radio and kitchen accessories from the store. "I have ordered from their catalogue several times and I am always so impressed by their courtesy and knowledge of the products."

Just What You're Looking For Lehman's has always attracted customers who just liked the idea of old-timey wares. Some items in Lehman's stock are made by Amish craftspeople; others come from various American and European manufacturers; and some are made in-house.

The company's own manufacturing division, headed by Galen Lehman, the founder's son and VP of day-to-day operations, produces new models of old tools. When the manufacturer of a cast-iron apple peeler decided to close up shop, for example, Lehman's bought the company and kept the peeler alive.

"The design hasn't changed in 100 years," Ervin says. "We're the only place you can get a new, authentic cast-iron peeler. It's a real conversation piece and fun to watch."

The family-owned business, with more than 50 employees, does not share its revenue figures. To date the company has shipped products to every state and 162 countries. Curious day-trippers from Cleveland and Columbus visit the Kidron store and a smaller branch store in nearby Mt. Hope.

Appealing to Basic Needs But how do more distant consumers know that Lehman's exists? At first the company marketed itself by word of mouth and advertisements in back-to-basics publications such as Organic Gardener. A 160-page Good Neighbor Heritage Non-Electric Catalog, launched in 1978, was the company's first major effort to reach potential customers worldwide. In 2000 Lehman's mailed 100,000 copies, purchased by consumers for $3 each. Lehman's - 3

Over the years, vicissitudes in the U.S. economy have brought new consumers to Lehman's doorstep. The Y2K "crisis" in late-1999 drew anxious buyers to Lehman's for oil lamps, wood stoves, waterless composting toilets and solar power equipment. Recent power outages in California are also attracting customers.

And back in the 1970s, the energy crisis put Lehman's on the map as one of the country's largest purveyors of wood-burning stoves. The store stocks 13 models of wood cookstoves and 60 different wood, gas or combination wood/gas heating stoves.

In its early days Lehman's stocked stoves mainly in black, the only color that suited its Amish customers. In the 1970s Lehman's stove supplier decided that, if Lehman's wanted to place an order for black stoves, with no colored stoves mixed in, it would have to purchase an entire truckload.

Although Jay Lehman knew it would take a good three years to sell that many stoves, he made the investment so that he could continue to supply his Amish customers. To his delight, when people around the country began to feel the pressure of larger and larger fuel bills, his stock of stoves sold out in two months.

"It's important to supply products to the local community," Lehman says. "Other people don't know about us until they need us, and then they're glad we're here."

Says Ervin: "We don't change. It's what goes on around us that does."

At a Glance Name: Lehman's URL: www.lehmans.com Location: Kidron, Ohio Founder: J. E. Lehman Founded: 1955 Industry: Non-electric goods Employees: 50 Revenues: Not Available