STAYING POWER
How locally-owned Bellingham Electric is still going strong as Sears, other retailers bow out
BELLINGHAM – When you run a business like the Bellingham Electric Appliance Store at 250 Pulaski Blvd., that has been around for 64 years, you learn some important rules for success like building trust with your customers and always providing good service.
Robert Allaire, the business’ owner, has found that formula to work quite well for his family operation over the years. He has provided major appliances, washers, dryers, stoves and refrigerators to his customers since taking over from his father, Stephen Allaire Sr., when he retired in 1983 and followed his father’s lead in making the business a success.
The elder Allaire had started the major appliance business in a smaller showroom space at 250 Pulaski Blvd. in 1953. A World War II veteran who had served with the Army Corps of Engineers under General George Patton in Europe, he returned home to work in appliance sales for Massachusetts Electric and started a family with his wife Ann before going into business for himself.
“He saw an opportunity to open his own business and he did,” Robert Allaire said of his father’s decision to start Bellingham Electric on Pulaski Boulevard in 1953.
Like any start up business, it wasn’t easy at first and Allaire said it took his father about a dozen years to become established in the appliance sales market.
“They sold major appliances just like what we sell now but on a smaller scale,” Allaire said of his father’s business.
The store had washers and dryers, refrigerators and stoves but fewer brands than you can find on Bellingham Electric’s expanded sales floor today.
The store was a Frigidaire franchise dealer back then and that is a brand still found at Bellingham Electric today along with all of the major lines now available, Bosch appliances, GE, LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, and Electrolux.
Allaire started working for his father at the store in the 1970s after he graduated from Blackstone High School and went off to Johnston & Wales for college.
He learned the formula behind Bellingham Electric that has kept the business popular with its customers even in today’s competitive business market.
“We try to establish a relationship with our customers and we always provide good service,” he said.
By taking care of a new customer’s needs in a satisfactory manner, a trust forms that in turn leads to another sales experience down the road. And when that relationship continues in a positive manner for a number of years, the customer’s family may also become customers as well as friends that they refer to Bellingham Electric, according to Allaire.
“That was the premise the business was built on and it still works today,” he said.
Bellingham Electric’s ability to serve loyal customers both in Massachusetts and just over the border in nearby Woonsocket has given the company a reputation that required it to maintain the full showroom of products that customers see when they walk in today.
The wide variety of products and brands is the result of the Allaires participation in the New England Appliance and Electronics buying group made up of 125 independent businesses just like Bellingham Electric.
“It allows us to buy products at prices we need to be competitive with the big box stores,” Allaire said.
“We have a 300,000square-foot warehouse in Franklin,” Allaire said while explaining that anything Bellingham Electric needs for a customer can be found at the warehouse.
Bellingham Electric also provides its customers with service, both on the road and at the store, and making sure a customer’s service needs are met is another part of keeping customers coming back to the business year after year, according to Allaire.
“We provide service and parts for our own customers and we also provide service to customers who did not buy here,” he said. By helping someone with a service problem, Bellingham Electric can many times start a new customer relationship, he explained.
That will be even more important with the closing of the Sears Roebuck & Co. store, at Walnut Hill Plaza, a longtime participant in the area’s major appliances market.
“We are going to aggressively go after that Sears business and we want their former customers to come to us, even for service,” Allaire said.
Bellingham Electric, after all, is located on busy Pulaski Boulevard only about half-mile away from the Sears store location, he noted.
Bellingham Electric has taken other steps to keep current in the market, completing major renovations to the interior and exterior of its store since 2011, and maintaining its staff of 17 veteran employees.
“We are really set up for business going into the future and today we have 250 products on display in the store,” Allaire said.
The store’s staff includes Todd Buehler, the sales manager, who has been with the company for 30 years, and Jim Tormey, the service manager, also with the company for 30 years.
“It has gone great over the years. I’ve put together a great team of people and a lot of them have been here for 20 to 25 years,” he said. “We have good people, we are able to keep them and they do a good job,” he added.
Allaire, himself, now 67, has been working at Bellingham Electric for 47 years and plans to continue working while transitioning to his son, Jeff’s leadership.
“I still want to work and I love what I do,” the elder Allaire said.
Jeff Allaire has been working on the business’ web-based offering as one of his current contributions and Bellingham Electric customers can not only find information on store offerings but also product comparisons and free buying guides, the younger Allaire explained
The business offers an annual tent sale at the store in early June and also has sales for all the major holidays through the course of the year including Memorial Day, July 4, and Labor Day.
That is plenty to keep Allaire busy these days. “My goal is to continue working until I am ready to retire and to perpetuate this business until it is 100 years old,” he said. “Right now it’s 64 years and counting and we are still going,” he said.
Bellingham Electric is open 6 days a week. Store hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday are from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The store offers delivery service, parts and service, and also free lay-aways, and financing. There is even a temporary storage option for paid for purchases in the case of someone building a home or moving into a new residence.