Location: Clarksville, Ark.
Owner: Chip Uren
History: What started in 2003 as a part-time business for Chip Uren quickly turned into much more.
“I had sold another business and was looking for something to do,” Chip recalled. “I had a shop I owned in Knoxville (Ark.), and I would drive back and forth between my house and the shop. There was a guy who always had a tractor for sale in his yard, and I noticed it changed every couple of weeks. I was looking for something do and I had this place in the country, so we decided to sell tractors out of it. I really wanted a place to restore my old cars and just sell a few tractors out front, but it became much more. Our first year we sold about 125 tractors.”
Products and services: ARTRAC Sales and Rental offers a variety of products, and Chip said diversification in a small town is important.
“We have LS and Kioti tractors, and we have been expanding our powersport division and just picked up Artic Cat. We handle a number of brands and are involved in a number of industries. By having multiple brands, with the supply issues the way they are, it has been really helpful.”
ARTRAC Sales and Rental also offers customers items such as brush cutters, grapples, loaders, stump grinders, ag tillers, ATVs, chainsaws, utility tailers and much more.
“We probably sell more zero-turn lawn movers than any other niche product, but we are pretty well evenly divided,” Chip said.
Chip and his crew at ARTRAC Sales and Rental also offer service to all products they sell.
Another market for the company is equipment rental.
“We rent everything from sewer snakes to backhoes, exicators, skid steers, various types of saws, trenchers, scaffolding, lifts, all that kind of stuff,” Chip said. “We try to be diversified, and we might not have everything for everyone, but we have a lot of things for a lot of people.”
Business philosophy: “Overall, our philosophy has been to provide the best valued products to our customers. We don’t sell the most expensive brands, but we don’t sell the cheapest. We want to offer a good-valued product of qood quality.”
Future plans: Chip said supply chain issues have been difficult for ARTRAC Sales and Rental, as it has with many businesses, and admitted he is a little apprehensive of the future if supply lines do not open.
“We’re doing fine, but I hope we see a change in direction in several areas and see some improvements,” he said.
