You don’t build a business on the word “no.”
Finding ways to say “yes” to customers was one key to success for Jim Baker when he started Baker Supply Ltd. with his wife, Muriel, in 1965.
The philosophy paid off for the business, which is today run by the Baker’s son Bill and grandson Ryan, which after more than 50 years has outlived most of its old competitors and continues a healthy trade among corporate competition from automotive chain stores.
Baker Supply moved to its current location on Cliff Street in the early 1980s, but opened at 350 Terminal Ave. when Jim, who was born in Nanaimo in 1920, moved back to the Island after managing two large firms in Vancouver. Bill said there was a fair amount of doubt among Nanaimo’s established parts suppliers that his father’s business would last.
“You just had to start hustling,” Bill said. “We were lucky to get one customer an hour down there. Then it just kept going.”
As Bill became more involved with running the business, there were plenty of times customers called him out at night to fill urgent requests for parts.
“I’d come back and forth at night if they needed stuff,” he said. “The Balances were a logging outfit. There was a whole bunch of brothers. One night one of the guys phoned. He said, ‘I need some parts.’ I said, ‘Where are you?’ ‘Oh, we’re in your store.’ I’d forgot to lock the door. So, there they were, six customers in our store. They’d look after you.”
Some weekend mornings Bill would arrive at work to encounter several customers already in the store, drinking coffee his dad brewed in a big percolator urn and eating donuts from Scotch Bakery next door.
“I’d walk in there about 7 a.m. and there’s about eight guys in there,” Bill said. “They’re all old fallers, old loggers. They had to get out of the house, they’re so used to getting up early, so I had to go next door to get the donuts that were just made fresh because none of them had teeth. So there they are dipping all the stuff, but it was a good deal.”
Business was built on how those relationships developed.
Contemporary life, and vehicles, are more complicated. Extensive computerization and software-driven control systems mean cars require new skills to repair, store owners must stock larger parts inventories, carefully tuned to local markets. Ryan said it’s hard to predict the future the automotive supply business, but technological advancement does drive the store’s direction.
“It tells you where to go and you’ve just got to work with it and be on it,” Ryan said.
It also draws new generations of customers. There are more women automotive technicians than ever and young guys plugging performance accessories into diesel four-wheel-drive pickups.
“The girls are really good,” Ryan said. “They’re a lot more knowledgeable now and they’re learning.”
The Internet has also brought competition from online suppliers, but online repair tutorials and parts inventories bring in fresh, knowledgeable customers wanting a second informed opinion on the product they’re considering from a local supplier they already have a relationship with and can trust to fill the order and stand behind the product.
