Dealer Network · Colorado · Ouray County
Become an AJ Shades Dealer in Ouray County
Ouray County: about 5,265 residents in the San Juan Mountains, the “Switzerland of America,” and a luxury second-home market under extreme alpine UV.
Prefer text? Text AJ Shades at (909) 325-3110
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Prefer to talk it through? Text (909) 325-3110 (TEXT-only) or call Richard Gutierrez, Project Manager, at (949) 378-6642 (Se habla espanol).
Ouray County calls itself the Switzerland of America, and the comparison does real work for a shade dealer. About 5,265 people live here year-round between Ouray and Ridgway, but the county’s economy runs on visitors: hot springs soakers, ice climbers, summer travelers crossing the San Juans. The result is a tiny residential base wrapped around an outsized hospitality and second-home economy, and both buy premium shade.
The residential lane is luxury second homes. Owners keep mountain retreats they occupy for the season, and they furnish them like the primary residences they left behind. Design matters here: the full cassette’s clean lines sit well against a Victorian-era facade or a timber-frame lodge, the operation is quiet and motorized, and everything about the system reads engineered rather than improvised.
The climate argument is altitude. Sun at San Juan elevations is brutally direct, fading cheap fabrics in a season and baking decks and patios through the afternoon. Wind drops off the peaks just as fast. The pitch is protection: UV-tested fabrics under a fifteen-year warranty, a sealed cassette that locks the system away between uses, and a wind sensor that retracts before a gust front arrives.
The model is dealer wholesale. You offer AJ Shades products nationwide on a product-only basis and fulfill installation with your own crew or trusted local contractors. Our own installation teams work only in Southern California, San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, so every Colorado project belongs to the dealer: your customer relationships, your schedule, your profit, with factory training and technical backup behind you.
The season is short, so the pipeline has to be long. Snow compresses the install calendar, which means the dealer quotes in late winter and spring, builds the book before the passes fully open, and installs through summer while second-home owners are in residence and deciding. The dealer who owns the spring quote owns the summer.
The product line
What Ouray County dealers sell
Alpine-grade shade for the San Juans, engineered for elevation.
Motorized Power Screens
Motorized zip-track screens that drop over patios, hot tubs, and lodge decks, shade, privacy, and insect control at the touch of a button. In Ouray County, the screen is the evening play: close the deck against the alpine chill and the bugs, open it to the view.
See power screens for dealersFull-Cassette Awnings
Full-cassette retractable awnings, the profile that wins with design-conscious mountain buyers. Sealed housing, quiet Somfy-powered operation, clean lines on historic and lodge architecture, and a fifteen-year factory warranty that ends every buyer interrogation.
See cassette awningsOpen-Roll Retractable Awnings
Open-roll retractable awnings for Ouray County: motorized operation, sensor-driven storm protection, and on-demand shade at the line’s most accessible price. The practical answer for rental cabins and workforce housing that still need real shade.
Browse the dealer catalogEvery retractable awning and motorized power screen in the catalog carries the 15-year factory-serviced warranty, and at San Juan elevations that sentence does the heavy lifting: buyers have watched the sun destroy cheap fabric, and fifteen years is the rebuttal. American-made, veteran-owned; coverage varies by product and component.
Patio covers are not part of the dealer lineup.
Territory opportunity
The San Juan territory
Historic Ouray, gateway Ridgway, and alpine second homes.
Own Ouray first. The historic town holds Victorian-era homes, Main Street storefronts, and the hospitality core: lodges, restaurants, and hot springs facilities with patios that earn their keep in summer. Commercial cassette jobs here carry the biggest tickets in the county, and a visible install on Main Street is advertising you cannot buy.
Work Ridgway next. The gateway town mixes ranch-town roots with newer amenity homes, workforce households, and buyers who chose the valley for the long term. The pitch shifts from luxury to longevity: engineered shade, sensor protection, and a warranty that matches a thirty-year plan.
Serve the alpine second homes. Scattered subdivisions and ridge parcels hold absentee owners with premium budgets and strong opinions about aesthetics. The cassette’s clean profile and the sensor’s self-protection close these buyers, and the dealer becomes their on-mountain contact.
Cover the whole county and let referrals cross the passes. About 5,265 residents means one dealer owns Ouray County outright, with room to serve the surrounding San Juans when lodge and second-home owners carry the name across the ridgeline.
Why partner with AJ Shades
The alpine edge
Tiny county, outsized budgets, and sun that punishes cheap fabric.
1. Wholesale terms, real margin. Every middleman between the factory and the dealer takes a cut. In Ouray County there is exactly one relationship, you and AJ Shades, with dealer pricing set at the factory and the full margin yours to keep.
2. Altitude UV is your urgency. Buyers at San Juan elevations have watched cheap shade fade, fray, and fail. You arrive with UV-tested fabrics, sealed housings, and a fifteen-year warranty, the engineered answer to a climate everyone here respects. The objection becomes the close.
3. The hospitality lane is real. Hot springs lodges, restaurants, and inns run patios that seat paying guests all summer. Commercial cassette awnings and screens on those patios are high-ticket, high-visibility jobs, and one lodge install puts your work in front of every guest who dines under it.
4. Put fifteen years in every quote. The 15-year factory warranty on every retractable awning and motorized power screen is your credential with luxury buyers who interrogate every purchase. It ends the comparison shopping and starts the measuring. Coverage varies by product and component.
5. Your capital stays yours. Nothing sits in a warehouse through the winter. Every unit is built to order after the sale, so your money stays in your business instead of sleeping on a shelf: sell from samples and the catalog, and the factory ships to the job.
Run an install crew in the San Juans? The contractor program is built for crew-led businesses, and plenty of Colorado partners run it alongside the dealer program.
Apply to Become a DealerOuray County dealer FAQ
Questions Ouray County businesses ask us
How does a business become an AJ Shades dealer in Ouray County?
Is the AJ Shades dealer program a franchise?
What products can Ouray County dealers sell?
How do you sell around a short mountain install season?
Do retractables work on Ouray’s historic homes?
Who handles installation in Ouray County?
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Ouray County’s dealer seat is open.
Wholesale shade systems for Ouray County dealers, American-made retractable awnings and motorized power screens, veteran-owned factory, training, and a 15-year warranty on every awning and screen sale.
Text AJ Shades
(909) 325-3110
Built by Family. Designed for Yours.
Owned
Made
on awnings & screens
five-star reviews
CSLB #951583