“On Aire Ep. 17 w/ Jacob Gerson and JJ Hjalmarson – The Art of Industrial Real Estate Podcast” featuring Jacob Gerson and JJ Hjalmarson from Gerson Company
🎄 The Anatomy of the Import Business: AI-Driven Sourcing with The Gerson Company 🎙️ Episode 17 of On Air with Team Jensen
In the seventeenth episode of On Air with Team Jensen: The Art of Industrial Real Estate, the team hosts cousins Jacob Gerson (VP of Sales) and JJ Hjalmarson (VP of E-Commerce) from The Gerson Company. Celebrating 83 years of operation out of Olathe, KS, the fourth-generation leaders unpack an incredible multi-generational immigration narrative, strict family employment rules, and how they are utilizing advanced artificial intelligence to revolutionize seasonal retail distribution.
🗽 Sourcing Turquoise to Global Sourcing: The American Dream
The company’s origin traces back to the late 1930s when their Jewish great-grandparents fled Nazi Germany after being forced to liquidate their high-end department store. Sponsored by a family in Kansas City, Oscar Gerson began working as a traveling shoe salesman across Oklahoma and New Mexico reservations. He bartered for native turquoise jewelry on the road, creating a localized trade that officially birthed the business in 1941. Over the decades, the company evolved into a massive costume jewelry wholesaler before pivoting into major seasonal home decor and imports in the 1990s.
📋 The Strict 3-Year Corporate Rule
To preserve corporate excellence and prevent typical family business entitlement traps, the third-generation established a strict corporate mandate: no descendant can enter the business without working independently for an external firm for at least three consecutive years. Jacob logged time in San Francisco’s high-tech startup landscape, while JJ built his sales expertise in the specialized commercial HVAC market—outside experience that injected fresh analytical and operational frameworks into the family business.
⚙️ Open-Heart Surgery: Shifting the ERP System
The cousins discuss the high-stakes reality of executing a full Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) overhaul across their distribution infrastructure. Described as “open-heart surgery for a business,” the transition was intentionally scheduled during their slowest operational window in May—the exact same window they utilize to host their massive, public warehouse clearance sale to turn static inventory into liquid capital.
🤖 Mining 83 Years of Proprietary Data with AI
Rather than treating AI as a shallow marketing buzzword, Gerson has reorganized its internal tech leadership to focus specifically on machine learning for sales and product development. By feeding 83 years of proprietary purchasing data, regional ZIP codes, and retail store classifications into custom models—and layering on predictive global design trends (like the massive current trend in mushroom motifs)—the system builds specialized inventory mixes. A January pilot program proved the concept, driving a staggering 29% increase in wholesale order volumes.
🦏 Protecting the Value Proposition Against Retail Giants
Operating in a landscape where their largest national accounts (such as Walmart and Costco) maintain their own overseas sourcing offices, Gerson’s survival rests entirely on agile trend identification. Because corporate giants are risk-averse, Gerson tests custom seasonal products through their nimble independent “mom-and-pop” retail network first. Once a category is a proven hit, they re-engineer the product line to fit the stringent price-point parameters of big-box buyers, providing a reliable safety net for global retail chains.
Learn more about BluHawk at www.bluhawk.com
Follow Team Jensen for more insider episodes on Kansas City CRE.
