NORWAY – A decision by Western Auto Supply Co. to stop supplying products to its independently-owned Western Auto dealers will have little effect on Western Auto stores in Norway and Livermore Falls.

Livermore Falls Western Auto Associate Store owner Dick Jackman said the decision announced a week ago will enable him to offer a wider variety of items and more inventory. The store has been growing every year and now can expect to grow even more, he said.

“We’ll be free of a company that used to charge us for their services, and we’ll be able to have a wider variety of things to sell. I’m excited about it,” said Jackman, whose Livermore Falls store opened in 1978.

Joe Cummings, operations manager at Western Auto of Norway, agrees that the change will be a positive one at the downtown Norway store.

“We were being serviced less and less” by Western Auto Supply Co., he said, largely because of the reduced concentration of stores spread over a wide geographic area.

“Western Auto Supply Company has found it increasingly difficult to serve its dealer network effectively,” said the Norway’s store part-owner, Chris Shorey, son of president and treasurer Frank Shorey.

Cummings said that less than 15 percent of what is now offered in the Main Street store is supplied by Western Auto Supply Co. Once the company had four distribution centers. Now they have only one, located in North Carolina. “We’ve seen a lot of diminished service from them,” Cummings said.

Advance Auto Parts of Roanoke, Va., the nation’s second largest retailer of automobile parts, acquired the Western Auto Supply Co. in 1998 from Sears, which owned it for about five years. Advance Auto Parts said it anticipates a net loss of $2.3 million after taxes for 2003 by discontinuing its wholesale distribution network, which also serviced 44 other independent retailers.

Advance Auto Parts bought Discount Auto Parts in 2001 and has 2,500 stores, including 794 new stores they’ve built themselves and 535 Parts America stores, which were converted to Advance Auto Parts stores.

In the golden years for Western Auto Supply Co. in the 1970s, the company served nearly 5,000 dealers across the country, providing them with most of the products the dealers carried.

Now there are only 304 dealers left.

Years prior to the Advance Auto Parts sale, independent dealers, out of necessity, began buying directly from wholesalers, stocking their stores with many of the same items without having to pay Western Auto Supply Co. as the middleman.

“We used to get all our auto parts from them,” said Cummings. “Now we go to smaller suppliers that are able to service us better.”

Western Auto of Norway long ago went beyond auto parts into selling major name-brand appliances and quality furniture and bedding, buying direct from such companies at Catnapper, Moosehead Manufacturing and Flexsteel. The Norway store also offers a wide variety of outdoor equipment, including lawn mowers in summer and snowblowers in winter.

“I don’t think the general public is going to notice any difference, we’re just changing,” Cummings said.

Maine has three Western Auto stores, the third located in East Millinocket. Each is independently owned; there is no franchising fee or other agreement. Each store must obtain a license to use the Western Auto name and trademark. The license requirement will expire in 2006, and after that Jackman said the remaining Western Auto stores will be able to use the name free and clear.

The Western Auto name dates back to at least 1905, when Western Auto of Norway first opened up shop in the Main Street building that presently houses Cattails, a gift shop. The present 313 Main St. building was built in 1950 by John Schiavi, who ran it under the name Schiavi’s Western Auto until it was changed to Western Auto of Norway in 1978.

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