Published: October 25, 2009 05:04 am      

Adams Office Supply keeps up with the times

FAIRMONT — When Harvey Havlichek started working at Adams Office Supply in 1967, the store sold four different styles of chairs and two different styles of desks.

“Today I probably have 300 different chairs that I can offer a customer,” said Havlichek, who bought the business in 1976 from then-owner Jack Wade.

“Back then, we had an option of two desk models, No. 560 and No. 1562. Both of them were metal and one had chrome legs and one had steel legs. Today, I have several hundred different kinds of desks that I can get for our customers.”

Reaching back even further to when the store was founded in February 1932, Havlichek can think of even more changes.

“Office supplies back then from ’32 to now have gone from typewriters to computers,” he said. “Even paper clips were shaped different in 1932. Most of the seating was probably wood.”

Adams Office Supply has kept up with the times. Now, Havlichek can show customers three display rooms of furniture in 6,000 square feet of space. If a customer orders a desk or chair, the item will arrive the next day.

“We are a well-stocked office supply store,” Havlichek said. “We carry most of the computer cartridges — ink jet and laser cartridges. We keep drafting supplies. We’re well-stocked. But if we don’t have it on the shelf, we get it the next day.”

The store always has been located on Adams Street, but not at its current location of 210 Adams St. It started out at 105 Adams St. and then moved to 101 Adams St. before settling in at the historical building that once housed First National Bank in 1971.

“There was actually a cashier’s residence on the side of the building,” Havlichek said. “That’s where the Fashion Scene is today. The cashier was basically the head person at the bank responsible for opening and closing and getting the money to the tellers. He would have the combination to the safe. He was a very important person.”

When Havlichek started at Adams Office Supply, the catalog was about 150 pages. Now, it’s 1,600 pages, he noted. Other than a 20-month stint when Havlichek worked at the Preston County Health Department in the early 1970s, he has been at the store for nearly 42 years, more than half its existence.

The business really began to change in the 1980s when computers began to get more popular.

“The consumers became more demanding,” Havlichek said. “The pace of the business changed in the early 1980s and things got faster. And computers aided in the distribution of products and it made it easier to track items. It made it easier for wholesalers to offer faster delivery.

“With the advent of computers, businesses got quicker and dictated that. Not only office supplies but all businesses had to offer quicker services.”

Just the other day, Havlichek noted, he made a comment to someone that years ago, no order went out of the store without a copy set inside.

“Today, nobody knows what it is. It was tissue paper with carbon attached so when you typed something on the typewriter, you put a copy set in it. You would type on it and it would make your duplicate. I don’t even think it would be available today. Today, we don’t even sell carbon paper. I find that amazing.”

About 80 percent of Adams Office Supply’s business is delivery, “out of the back door,” Havlichek noted, while the other 20 percent is the storefront with the products available on the shelves.

“It’s very easy for us to take orders via the computer, the fax machine, the telephone,” he said. “The retail end — I don’t want to diminish it, but the retail end isn’t the biggest part of the business. The bulk of the business is people calling us, placing orders with us and us delivering the orders.”

In addition, Adams Office Supply offers design work and other services.

“If somebody is going to open a new office and have just raw space, we can do drawings for them. We can offer them a design to show them what furniture would fit. We can do color renderings for them if they wish. Those are services that are not offered by the big box stores.

“We have survived because we offer a service.”

E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.