The Electrical & Plumbing Store thrives as a family-run business, combining decades of expertise, high-quality products, and exceptional service to remain competitive in a shifting market.
If you’re an experienced contractor, a reputable renovator, a new homeowner, or an incurable do-it-yourselfer, odds are good you’re a regular at The Electrical & Plumbing Store.
Both locations, the original operation at 1080 Ogilvie Rd. and its Bell’s Corners counterpart at 31 Northside Rd., are the only facilities in the city that boast full, onsite lighting and plumbing showrooms. Each store is teeming with fixtures, flooring, furniture, and fans, selected to make your home or your passion project into a work of magazine cover art—not to mention reliably functional. And if you’re dealing with the tricky matter of setting up or renovating a bathroom, each EP Store (as insiders call it) features a professional contracting department guaranteed to complete the job to the highest standards.
The EP Store is a family business. “My father,” current owner-operator Jim Sourges explains, “was a master electrician who operated his own electrical contracting company: Ottawa Valley Electric. In 1980, he decided that there was an opportunity to establish a retail store. My mother was the purchaser and did the administrative work.” Young as he was, Sourges worked there, too. “We were a typical family business. I remember coming in with my parents to work on Saturdays when I was 12 years old.”
After obtaining a degree in economics from Princeton in 1991, Sourges decided to perpetuate the family legacy. “I discovered that I wanted to stay in the family business,” he affirms. “It was the best fit for me. I had a passion for serving clients.”
“I went through a long learning process where my father was my primary mentor,” he continues. “I also learned a lot from the owners of many other local businesses as well as our suppliers, many of whom are also multi-generational family businesses.”
Now, after thirty-plus years at the helm, Sourges has a legacy of his own—one that has weathered a lot of changes. “The market has changed in many ways. It went from mostly local stores with a few large chains to the addition of Big Box retailers. Then, there was the explosion of online competition.” But the company stayed strong. “The only way to remain competitive is to make sure that our customers receive a combination of the lowest possible price and the highest level of service,” says Sourges. “We focus on that every day.”
Expansion, though, has proven the company’s biggest challenge. “The construction of our Bells Corners location was a tremendous amount of work,” Sourges recounts. “I really stretched our human and financial resources. We were closed for a total of nine months from demolition to re-opening. My father and I, along with our staff, spent countless hours getting the store fit to open once the construction was completed.”
Stock selection was, and remains, key. The company keeps current with technological and decorative developments by attending yearly trade shows. There, Sourges and his co-workers scout and assess the latest products from the most reputable suppliers and integrate them into their showrooms.
The EP Store’s deep inventory of plumbing accessories includes bidets, faucets, and furniture in a variety of finishes. Their brand-name flooring includes clearance and overstock selections. And their bulbs, chandeliers, and directional lights come in styles from classy to casual.
While the company is well-established across the city, it never takes its good standing for granted. “As a second-generation owner of a family business,” Sourges explains, “there can be a tendency to take the previous success for granted and assume that customers will always come back just because you’ve been around for so long. But I remind myself every day that we need to give our customers a reason to shop with us every time they walk through the door or call either of our stores.”
Those reasons continue to be the ones his Greek immigrant parents established over four decades ago, when they accommodated their clientele’s requests for lighting and plumbing fixtures by expanding their specialty operation instead of making them crisscross the city: top quality products, helpful service, staying current.
It’s made the Electrical & Plumbing Store a success so far and may well for years to come. Sourges is grooming his son, Nick, to take over the business, the same way that his father groomed him. His top piece of advice? “There’s no guarantee of long-term success in any business,” he declares. “If you want a chance to achieve it, you need to do something you love and work hard at it every day. Focus on the process. That will give you the best chance.”
