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Thursday, January 29, 2004
JOHN ROLFE: ShopTalk
'Parts guys' keep their customers connected
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Q: What were you doing just now? A: I was putting together some quotes, actually, for the Cianbro people at the petrol drill. The whole rig down there is set up for European gear and sometimes parts are hard to find - there are certain proprietary parts that are only going to come from Europe. Kind of a knack I have is being able to find some hard-to-get parts. Q: Do you do a lot of importing? A: No, no. That's a real small portion of what we do, but we do have some contacts in that area. Q: So what do you distribute? A: Well, we're listed as a distributor of electronic parts. And that can range from everything from fuses to networking supplies for computers, like cable, for interfacing different peripherals from different machines to whatever. So we have a pretty extensive line of computer cables, and from that it kind of spills over into stuff like serial cards to hard drives that computers need . . . We deal mainly with industrial accounts, from BIW to any of the mills around, and broadcast people, but we do sell over the counter, general retail. But we don't say that too loudly - we don't advertise in the retail area. Basically our retail is, to be honest, almost like word-of-mouth. Q: And that's by preference? A: Well, we treat retail customers just like any other account, but we try to keep our image as an industrial supplier. We don't sell the consumer items; we sell the items that would support the consumer items. If someone needs to hitch a digital video screen to a computer, or needs to network a business . . . Another area we're doing is security systems, ever since 9/11. We have video capture cards that people can hitch up to computers, pump in up to 16 cameras and put it onto the hard drive, as opposed to a time-lapse video recorder. So they need cables and connections for that . . . Plus, we handle different lines of security cameras and stuff. Q: How did the business get started? A: I worked for a company called Commercial Distributors, which was a distributor for eons, mostly did RCA and Whirlpool before they went dealer-direct. They had an electronics division, and I was initially at one of the branch stores up in Auburn, where I'm from. They were slowly closing stores and I migrated to Portland, where after one hundred and five years, they finally pulled the plug on the whole thing. They left a lot of electronics lines I was familiar with open, and there wasn't any source for them, so I put it (the business) together. Scott had had a TV repair business on Congress Street for years, United TV. We kind of joined forces, in 1989. He knew the electronics and audio, and I had a grasp of the parts and stuff. I'm the H and he's the R. Q: How much do you carry in inventory? A: Quite a bit. We probably have a quarter-million on the shelf, and do probably a million in sales per year - that's been pretty consistent. You can't have everything, but we generally have something that will fill someone's needs at the moment. We do a lot of special orders . . . A lot of people come in and their eyes get very wide - this is like a candy store to them. They say they can't believe there's a place like this around here. Q: It doesn't sound as if competition is an issue. A: There's a place in Massachusetts kind of like us, a lot bigger, south of Boston. But we're pretty much the only game around here, I guess. Q: How has the business grown over the years? A: At first, we had a video and audio repair shop out back that kind of supported our salaries. Of course, now nobody gets anything fixed in the consumer world, except for really high-end stuff, so we eventually pulled the plug on the repair. As far as building up an inventory, I think we started with $5,000 that I had borrowed. We picked up a few really key lines - the semiconductor line was a real big thing. There was a need for certain items that had been dropped, and we were able to pick up clients that had been going through Commercial (Distributors). And as more industrial accounts came in, needing different electrical connectors, we were able to say OK, you need this, this and this . . . It was around '94-95 that we started seeing a definite need. Q: Are you outgrowing your space? A: We're trying to maximize here, but we're running out of space. We've got some land over on Valley Street, and we'll eventually build a new world headquarters - heh - a new storefront, over there. This Bayside area is going to be changing pretty soon, so we're looking to the future. Q: It sounds as if you're extremely busy. A: It's a full day here, no dull moments around here. Scott and I have two counter guys, and we have one guy who likes it so much, he comes in and helps out between his other jobs. But basically it's just the four of us in sales, plus my wife, Beth, who does inventory, ordering. Q: What's tough about the business? A: Just, making, probably . . . my only thing is, just making sure we can take care of the people who call. That's the only thing that's hard, making sure they have the right answers and not leaving anybody hanging. Q: What are you going to do to celebrate the 15th anniversary, in June? A: Good question! We probably should do something.
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