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COMPANY HISTORY From 'Mothers Front Room' To The Leading Independent DIY & Household Store In East Devon. 
Express & Echo News Feature Picture For Our 25th Annerversay in 2004 From Left To Right Betty, Tony, Vivienne, Chris & Jeff Abbott
Abbotts first opened its doors back in 1979, but father and son Alec and Tony Abbott were in business together long before that, they had been in partnership together as electrical contractors working in Ottery and surrounding villages for many years. While her husband and son were at work Betty (Alec’s wife) had people calling on her front door nearly everyday asking to buy bits of cable and electrical fittings from her.
So in 1979 the living room was converted into a smalll electrical shop selling cable, batteries, electrical fittings and small electrical appliances. This shop had a bell on the door so Betty could serve people in between doing her housework. The shop proved to be successful but bigger premises were required so in 1983 Abbotts moved their business into the old carpet warehouse next door to the shop and at that time converted it into a DIY business, dropping the small electrical appliances as Comet and Argos had greatly affected this trade. In the early stages the premises were too large for us so we partitioned bits off and made storerooms of them, Today we take up all the sales area and our stores have moved upstairs and to premises across the road.
The original electrical shop was rented initially to Wendys Greengrocers who in time moved further up the street to larger premises and then to John Dobles Jewellers which was later sold to Otter Gems who now trade in Mill Street. As our business continued to grow we took the original shop premises back and made it our tool department which it still remains today if you have ever wondered why we have an extra unopnened door, this is why.
Space was once again becoming a problem so No. 3 Jesu Street was bought in 1997, the garden was made into a useful yard for our building products an d the large sheds became our timber store, originally the house downstairs was our paint store. Then in 2000 to accommodate current buying stratergies which necessitated us having to sell some cookware, we opened our cookshop at No. 3. This proved successful and we later expanded the range of housewares and cleaners and opened this up into our DIY shop.
We constantly update our premises with ease of access forefront in our minds; possibly the last improvement being opening up our large timber area to customers who now can select the merchandise themselves.
Shop Pictures 1979 to 2005
Over the years the business has grown with all the family’s involvement; every conversion project being undertaken firstly by Tony and Alec (including putting in the shop window!) and in subsequent years by Tony and Vivienne’s sons Chris and Jeff, although they were always helping even when they were small.
Over the years the shop has changed, expanded and added new products many times offering the people of Ottery and surrounding area more and more choice with out having to go outside of the town.
In 2000 they bought they neighbouring house extended the shop and adding cookware to their range of products, and going back into small electrical appliances. Their houseware range was also extensively expanded, at the same time.
Vivienne, Tony’s, wife has joined the family firm, as has his sons Chris & Jeff, making it a truly family business. Until Alec’s death in 2003 they had three generations of the family working alongside each other.
As well as working in the shop the Abbott family work hard to help the local community, Tony is a town councillor and is an active member of the chamber of commerce, who his wife Vivienne is the chairman of. Their sons are heavily involved in the Ottery venture scout group, and Chris is also a committee member of the British hardware federation, which supports and promotes independent Hardware shops.
Abbott’s belong to the two biggest buying groups of DIY products in the UK, enabling them to buy goods direct from manufactures and enabling them to keep their prices below what you would expect to pay in the DIY superstores, and that is without the time and expense. Abbotts have expanded and improved their store and ranges many times, but now with Abbotts now effectively ‘land locked’, the next logical step for the long term survival of the business was to expand outside of the town. ‘The reason we took this big step to expand was that because we buy our products direct from manufacturers, we have to buy in bigger and bigger quantities to remain as competitive as we have been over the last 29 years. Explains Tony Abbott ‘ To continue to do so in the future we needed to expand to a second store, not only for our own survival, but also for the benefit of all our customers in Ottery St. Mary, and Seaton.’
Tony, Vivienne, Chris and Jeff Abbott would like to take this opportunity to thank all their customers, for their custom and support over the last twenty nine, years and look forward to being of service to you in Ottery or Seaton, very soon.
Thank you for shopping at Abbotts
This page was last modified on Saturday, February 07, 2009 22:19:54
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