“I'm like a child in a toy store”: Bertoul, a basket of good taste

“Terminer notre vie professionnelle ensemble, c’est incroyable !”, confient Frédérique et Yves Delon. MIDI LIBRE – STEPHANE BARBIER

Du travail, de la passion et une longue histoire d’amour. Voilà l’alchimie de la réussite des époux Delon, présidant aux destinées de l’enseigne Bertoul, située dans la Grand’rue, au cœur de la capitale des Cévennes. Rencontre.

He had always wanted a small business. She had always been passionate about decoration. Life did the rest… One spring evening in 1996, precisely when the creator of the Bertoul brand, Brigitte Buisson, announced her desire to sell them the business…

To them, true Cévenols and regular customers of this decoration store in Alès, located on Grand Rue and called Bartas at the beginning. “I told him you're crazy !”, remembers Frédérique, then a medical secretary at the Alès-Cévennes hospital center (Chac), while Yves worked as a telephone technician for a private company. A life of employment that the combination of their passion “and a desire for change” will explode.

“It's a lot of work, we knew that, but we also found fulfillment there”, smiles Frédérique. “And then, here, I'm like a child in a toy store!” “In fact, ending our professional life together is incredible”, continues Yves Delon. “It was a dream. And it is realized in one of the most beautiful streets of Alès with the pride of living the success of the company…"

"We have always been passionate about decoration"

A company founded in 1996, whose manager, assisted by Magdy at the time, sees Frédérique regularly open the door of her establishment in which the couple spend nearly 70 hours today. "We have always been passionate about decor", confides Frédérique. "From our first purchases as a young couple, we have known each other since we were 15, we bought beautiful furniture, beautiful sofas." This passion will, therefore, be their salvation, while the resumption of the affair, in 2019, will come up against the crisis of "yellow vests" blocking access in the city center, while the Covid health crisis will suffocate it. A pitfall overcome as a family when their daughters, taking advantage of the implementation of Clic en collect, developed an Instagram account with to date more than 3,000 followers!

More than 150 suppliers

A communication that does not mention the absence of holidays for five years, the trips to suppliers and their oversized showrooms or the quest for the object that does not exist anywhere else, or the one that strikes the heart forms the Bertoul signature. “We are careful to know if someone is not selling the same thing. It is a question of ethics. Then, we remained as we are. Without playing a role, with the idea that a quality product exists for everyone." Practicing the fairest prices, the commercial aspect fades away at the moment of surveying the volume, all in length, of the establishment, where the products of more than 150 suppliers are installed, half of which are made up of regional ones. Decoration, cosmetics, perfumes, leather goods, delicatessen or scents, from floor to ceiling the eye is seduced, caught by the object that seemed to be waiting for its future owner… Quite an art.

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