Arbourne's

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Our Story

Established in 1948 by sole trader Geoffrey Louis Arbourne following his purchase of the Manchester building, New Road, Skewen. Looking to rename the Manchester Building, Geoffrey decided to use his own name for the store, but being an English man in Wales was quick to realise the patriotism of the Welsh, and obvious English spelling of his name Geoffrey. In an effort to integrate himself with his new Welsh community Geoffrey decided to spell his name the Welsh way on the shop sign, hence the name “Jefferies Stores”. This proved to be a success with the community but all but cost Geoffrey his surname of Arbourne spending the rest of his life referred to as “Mr Jefferies”. Jefferies Stores began its existence selling a great cross section of products from groceries and fresh produce to Ladies garments, hosiery, lino, rugs and bedding to name but a few. In the late 1950’s Geoffrey had the vision to recognise that the way in which people shopped was changing and in order for him to move with the times he too had to change. Geoffrey decided that he needed to do away with the general store and concentrate on what was selling and quickly diversified into a pure grocery store. He also introduced checkouts and allowed customers to self-serve. This was a great leap of faith on Geoffrey’s part as allowing customer’s access to the goods rather than being passed them from behind a serving counter was almost unheard of at the time. Geoffrey introduced the sale of cooked meats, a job which his wife Pauline would undertake from the family home at 235 New Road. These meats would then be brought to the shop and sliced on demand from the newly installed dairy counter. In 1965 Geoffrey’s son Robert came into the business aged just 16 to help his father who was struggling to cope with running a very busy store alone. Together they would continue to evolve the company undertaking a further re-fit in the late 1960’s. During the 1970’s the company delivered grocery’s to over 150 customers a week but this part of the trade was hit very hard buy the opening of Neath and Swansea’s first super store by ASDA in 1978. Unfortunately in 1981 Geoffrey became ill and sadly passed away leaving Robert and Pauline to continue on their own, a task which Robert grasped with both hands. In the early 1990’s Robert extended the premises and gave the store a complete facelift modernising every aspect within it. This saw the introduction of EPOS tills and back office system enabling him to order more efficiently and reduce wastage dramatically. It was around this time he realised that this was no longer a 9 to 5 business and initially began trading from 8 till 8, then from 8 till 10 and eventually from 7 till 10 following the introduction of news and magazines. In 1992 Robert’s son Matthew joined the ranks and along with Pauline they continued to drive the business together until she sadly passed away in 1994. 2002 saw the opening of the company’s second store in Winch Wen, ironically a stone’s throw away from where the ASDA of 1978 once stood. 2005 saw a further extension to the Skewen store integrating a Post Office to trade within the company premises, and a further re-fit in 2010 to service the ever increasing food to go and off sales departments.

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