[RE-wrenches] Great service at the wholesale level?

[Joel Davidson]

No one has yet to match the quality service David Katz and his crew gave customers when David owned AEE Solar, or Mark Weidhaas gave when he owned Alternative Solar Products. Automation and order processing are important, but what really counts is knowledge, experience, responsiveness, and a sincere interest in helping wrenches provide the right products to our customers.

I sympathize with the wholesale distributors. When Wm. Lamb Company was the only wholesale distributor, there were fewer products to inventory. Today, there are thousands of products that are constantly changing. Prices change as if products are perishable. Profit margins are shrinking. Job-hopping sales reps seem to have replaced career sales engineers. Manufacturers are finding it difficult to serve two masters, the multi-megawatt integrators and the smaller stocking distributors. Dealers want to offer their customers the newest gadgets and then complain about availability, vaporware, products not ready for prime time, etc.

Surprisingly, the maturing RE distribution chain of manufacturer-to-wholesaler-to-dealer-to-end-user is working well in the U.S. and worldwide. This week the solar and RE industry will meet in Anaheim as they did in 1984 for RETSIE. Back then, over 370 companies displayed their goods and services. That show was open to the public and over 10,000 people paid $5 to see equipment most of them could only dream of owning. Things are different now, but we are still not out of the woods. This time the public gets to see the show for free. In addition, there are hundreds of highly visible urban PV systems in the Los Angeles region and PV owners are telling their neighbors that PV is a better investment that a CD.

Joel Davidson
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Katz 
  To: RE-wrenches 
  Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 12:08 PM
  Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Great service at the wholesale level?


  I am certainly interested in which wholesale distributors offer good service, if any.
  David


  David Katz

  Chief Technical Officer

  AEE Solar

  1155 Redway Drive

  P.O. Box 339

  Redway, CA  95560

  Tel (707) 825-1200

  Fax (707) 825-1202

  dkatz at aeesolar.com

  www.aeesolar.com



  DISCLAIMER: 
  This communication, along with any documents, files or attachments, is intended for the use of only the addressee and contains privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of any information contained in or attached to this communication is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail reply and destroy the original communication and its attachments without reading, printing or saving in any manner.





  Wind-sun.com wrote: 
    And where exactly would that be?

    ..................................................................................................
    Northern Arizona Wind & Sun - Electricity From The Sun Since 1979
    Solar Discussion Forum: http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/
    ...................................................................................................




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  List sponsored by Home Power magazine

  List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org

  Options & settings:
  http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org

  List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org

  List rules & etiquette:
  www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm

  Check out participant bios:
  www.members.re-wrenches.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20091026/9f789276/attachment-0003.html>