The Electrical Trade Counter That Comes To You.

Inc. VAT Exc. VAT
My Basket £0.00

Information

Carving out the Niche

Carving out the Niche

Carving out the Niche

Electrical engineer Leroy Welborn and wife Sharron, now aged 78 and 76, bought Best Electric from Steve Osborne in 1977.  At the time of buying the company, Sharron ran the company and Leroy continued doing electrical contracting. When Leroy was not on calls, he would help run the store, make sales and carry out deliveries, so he could get to know more of the store's neighbourhood customers.

"During that time, we found out we could sell other things to the same customers hardware, gardening supplies and tools and so we changed the store name to Best Electric & Hardware," Leroy Welborn said. "Then added on and most of the second floor is now the 'parts loft,' " roughly 60,000 parts in marked drawers, for fixing faucets and lights, etc.

Welborn claimed he could look at a unit and know exactly which of the 60,000 parts would be needed to complete the job, all within 20 minutes or less, he said. The company owner and president, his son Greg, remembered how a move to a house in Maple Ridge helped guide the family's hardware direction.

Greg had helped Leroy pull wires and update the Maple Ridge house as a youth and later when he bought his own house in Florence Park decided to use the same kind of TLC and special parts to update and modernise the house.

In addition to rewiring and refurbishing antique lamps and fans, other services listed on the Best website include "chain saw sharpening, blade sharpening, computer paint matching, re-keying locks, pipe cutting and threading, stocking various sizes of nails." The store boasts 34,000 items in stock.

Greg Welborn said: "Another way the hardware business has changed for the worse is things are made cheaper in China for the throw-away society. They don't make any money selling repair parts. They make the most selling whole units. Years ago, you could take things apart and buy the parts to fix them.

"When people walk in the door, they've got a problem to tell us and we are there to help them fix it or at least to figure out a way to fix it. We still fix things and offer this service to customers not willing to pay enormous amounts on a system or product."