Shaffer’s Bottled Gas Thinks Big And Grows Gallons in a Small Town

When team members at Shaffer’s Bottled Gas (Hooversville, Pa.) decided to build a new propane appliance showroom, they had to decide whether to remain at the company’s Hooversville location or move closer to one of the nearby more-populated towns. They decided to stay in Hooversville, a small town of about 700 people that had been historically a coal mining area and has become somewhat of a bedroom community to the two larger metropolitan areas of Johnstown to the north and Somerset to the south.

“We felt it was strategically placed to take advantage of both of those customer sets, as well as a much more economical operating environment in a small town,” said company president Jeff Shaffer. 

After months of preparation, the company officially moved to its new location, with the Shaffer’s Bottled Gas propane business opening in August and the new SBG Comfort Hearth & Patio showroom in September, marking another chapter in the company’s long history with propane appliances.

Shaffer’s Bottled Gas, which sells propane to residential and commercial customers and also offers propane cylinder filling and exchange, held a grand opening for the new 1300-sq-ft SBG Comfort Hearth & Patio appliance showroom, which includes a full line of products that run on propane. Customers entering the location immediately see a variety of propane-powered appliances. Those include hearth products from Empire Comfort Systems, Valor and Napoleon gas fireplace products, outdoor kitchen products from Outdoor Greatroom Co., and Generac generators. Walking farther toward the back of the showroom, customers see a section dedicated to Rinnai propane products.

For its grand opening, SBG Comfort held a special event for builders and HVAC/plumbing contractors to visit the new showroom. A two-day public grand opening took place the following weekend, in which the company showcased its grills with a cookout. A local radio station conducted an on-location broadcast. Shaffer’s publicized the event with paid radio spots and newspaper ads and sent direct mailers to its existing customers.

Jeff Shaffer and the rest of the staff at Shaffer’s Bottled Gas and SBG Comfort have plenty of experience in the area of propane appliances, but they also know what it takes to sell propane and equipment. Sales manager Tim Doyle manages all aspects of sales, including advertising, online presence, and social media. Doyle and Shaffer implement an active education program for the technicians and inside salespeople, using mostly manufacturer product material to ensure they are knowledgeable on “appliances, the attributes of the appliance, and how it can fit in, first trying to determine what the customer’s wants and needs are and then trying to determine which appliance fits that need,” Shaffer noted. Shaffer’s son, Elliott, is involved in many aspects of the outside operations from bobtail driver to excavator operator, and his daughter, Lucy, has worked with her grandpa “Butch” doing plant operations. Both of them and some of their cousins started working at the family business at an age that Shaffer said probably violated child labor laws. “Yes, it was a little touch-and-go strapping in multiple car seats in bobtails and service trucks. When a customer would see that I certainly would get a funny look,” Shaffer reminisced. “It was probably a good thing that I never got pulled over with them in the trucks when they were little.” Lucy currently handles some part-time office duties as she considers her career choices. Shaffer’s wife Kathy, a teacher by profession, is part of the creative and motivating spirit behind SBG Comfort that has inspired many ideas with the showroom and marketing concepts.

The company has come a long way since it started in 1901 as a hardware store known as Daniel Shaffer’s. The store sold hardware to the coal mines and later sold furniture and appliances. It started selling propane in 1939, when it ventured into the propane appliance business by offering a gas cooking stove. 

It eventually went on to sell propane water heaters and Warm Morning heating stoves. Warm Morning, which is no longer in business, offered heating stoves that ran on wood, coal, or propane. Daniel Shaffer’s incorporated as Shaffer’s Bottled Gas in 1960 and built a bulk plant, filling and exchanging 100-lb cylinders.

“You have to be careful now because if you say ‘cylinder exchange’ to newer marketers, they think gas grill,” Shaffer said. His uncle, Warren Shaffer, ran the business in those early days. “But cylinder exchange for us was delivering 100-pounders. Then after 1960, we started to deliver with a bobtail, and we have grown that business ever since.” 

After the oil embargo in 1974, the company got out of the heating business; its remaining appliance offerings were cooking stoves, clothes dryers, and water heaters.

Warren Shaffer retired in 1995 from the propane operations, and the family decided to separate the two businesses. Jeff and his father, Jack, began to run Shaffer’s Bottled Gas while others in the family stayed with Daniel Shaffer’s. “We’ve been running it independently with propane appliances since 1995, and it would have been impossible to make it work without my dad’s experience and knowledge,” Jeff Shaffer noted. “Now that my dad has passed on I really appreciated the time together,” he added.

Appliances, however, were a small part of the business in the 1990s, mainly because of the lack of available showroom space. Management focused its attention on propane sales. But customers began demanding a stronger focus on propane-burning appliances. 

“Over time it became clear from our customers that there was a demand for us to sell, install, and service propane appliances like tankless and tank water heaters, propane-burning fireplaces, and propane-burning area heating appliances,” Shaffer stated.

The company answered those customer requests, but eventually the appliance business outgrew the space. “We moved into a new building in 2000, and by 2014, we had outgrown it.” Shaffer and his team decided to relocate and start SBG Comfort Hearth & Patio, with a renewed focus on appliances.

Working with contractors in the area was an important consideration in setting up the appliance business. “We try to partner with them by providing them an additional profit center,” Shaffer pointed out. “Our showroom is their showroom, so to speak.” Most customers visit the store to purchase a new fireplace for their home. SBG Comfort serves as a showroom for building contractors to showcase various choices, and SBG Comfort employees provide expertise on the equipment that the contractor might not have. SBG Comfort also compensates the builders, providing them a percentage of the sale for referring customers to the showroom.

For the first step of finding a location for the showroom, the company acquired an abandoned grocery store that Shaffer estimates was built soon after World War II. Shaffer’s moved its 1000-sq-ft main office and showroom about a mile away to the new 5000-sq-ft location.

“We were able to acquire the building at an affordable price, decided it would take care of our parking needs for administration, would take care of our needs for space for customer service representatives, and would give us a space to showcase our appliances,” Shaffer said. 

How did Shaffer’s design the facility? “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Shaffer noted, admitting that he and his team “stole ideas” from Blossman Gas’ showroom in Asheville, N.C. (BPN, March 2015), from Tevis Oil and Propane’s showroom in Maryland, and from Roach Oil and Propane in West Virginia. After that, organizing the showroom from start to finish was “a tremendous amount of work,” starting with looking for ideas in trade magazines from organizations such as the Hearth Patio & Barbecue Association. The team named the building “Stony Creek Court,” after the Stony Creek River that runs through Hooversville.

Shaffer and his team decided to offer a full line of Rinnai and Empire Comfort System appliances, as well as Generac generators, Valor fireplaces, Napoleon heaters, and Saber gas grills. All products run on propane, but the business will sell and install natural gas versions on request. 

If you ask Shaffer about what trends he sees in propane appliances, he will answer that “fire attracts people.” Part of the company’s showroom features an outdoor deck with products from the Outdoor GreatRoom Co. The area includes a pizza oven, Saber grill, fire tables, and lava heaters. Customers are intrigued by the fire tables, Shaffer learned when his company displayed its products at home shows. 

“The outdoor appliances were the sizzle that brought people to our display so we could sell them the steak,” Shaffer explained. “Then you can come over, capture them, and sell them heating appliances and tankless water heaters. People are attracted to outdoor propane-burning appliances. We apply that to our showroom by mimicking an outdoor room.”

Shaffer’s appliance sales for the third quarter of this year are up by 30% over the third quarter of last year. He attributes that partly to good radio and newspaper advertising. “Being able to showcase the products and advertise them has increased our showroom traffic.”

If he could offer just a few pieces of advice to propane marketers wanting to achieve that same level of success with propane appliance sales, sales manager Doyle would start by saying, “Know the codes” such as NFPA 58. Also, be familiar with the authority having jurisdiction where the appliance is installed, he added.

“Know the codes so you are safe and legal, and know the product, because the customer is going to have a million questions for you,” Doyle said.

Shaffer offered additional advice to propane marketers who might be thinking about getting into propane appliance sales: “Once you pick a product, be very knowledgeable.” That means working with your manufacturers and distributors and finding out what type of training they offer to acquaint you, your sales staff, and customer service representatives with how the products work.

One last piece of advice from Doyle: Show the appliances in a comfortable environment. “I think our sales have increased because now people can feel the heat coming off the fireplace, and people can see your options for trim kits on fireplaces and colors for cast iron stoves.” He added that the showroom should display the products “in a cozy living room atmosphere that helps the customer relax, not a sterile environment like they’re walking into a big-box store. Clean, comfortable, cozy — put them in the environment that they would be in their own home.”

Shaffer acknowledged the team effort coordinated by his long-time office manager, Theresa Piatek, and operations manager Dan Blough. “Without their superb, above-and-beyond call of duty to make this move a committed team effort, we would not be at this level of sales and customer satisfaction. And the last but most important person that I want to acknowledge is Kathy, my wife of over 30 years. We got in this together, the Lord has blessed us, and I love you. We made it happen together.” 

—Daryl Lubinsky