Dealer Network · Illinois · Chicago
Become an AJ Shades Dealer in Chicago
America's great lake city is built of greystones, two-flats, and rooftop decks, and nobody here owns the wholesale shade line yet. That seat is open.
Prefer text? Text AJ Shades at (909) 325-3110
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Chicago is the flagship Illinois territory for a simple reason: scale married to variety. More than 2.7 million residents live inside the city limits, in housing stock that reads like an architecture textbook, Chicago bungalows across the Northwest and Southwest Sides, limestone greystones in North Lawndale and Kenwood, brick two-flats in Pilsen and Bridgeport, courtyard apartments along the lakefront, and a generation of new construction topped with rooftop decks from Logan Square to the West Loop. Every one of those forms has an outdoor surface that bakes in July humidity and takes wind straight off Lake Michigan. A dealer who can shade a rooftop in Bucktown on Monday and screen a bungalow porch in Beverly on Friday owns a book of business with no ceiling on it.
The model is straightforward. Our Southern California factory manufactures; you sell and install in Chicago under your own name at wholesale. AJ Shades crews install only in Southern California, across San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, so no factory crew will ever bid against you in Cook County. Start with the dealer benefits, survey the Illinois dealer network, and look at the surrounding ground in Cook County and Lake County before you claim your neighborhoods.
The product line
What Chicago dealers sell
Shade engineered for lake wind, summer humidity, and a hard freeze every single year.
Rooftop-Ready Motorized Power Screens
Chicago's rooftop deck boom is a screen market waiting for a dealer. Zip-track screens turn exposed garage-top and flat-roof decks in the West Loop, Logan Square, and Lakeview into rooms that block wind, cut glare off the lake, and hold privacy against the next building over. Somfy-powered, sensor-ready, and backed by a fifteen-year warranty.
See power screens for dealersFull-Cassette Retractable Awnings
The historic-district answer. On greystones in Hyde Park, brownstones in Bronzeville, and landmarked facades where review boards watch every bracket, a cassette awning opens for summer evenings and vanishes into its housing for winter, leaving the architecture untouched. Fifteen-year warranty, American-made.
See cassette awningsAwning Recover & Reskin
For the bungalow belt homeowner in Portage Park, Mount Greenwood, or Garfield Ridge whose existing awning frame is still sound, dealers fit fresh fabric over that slab patio instead of selling a whole new system. A recover or reskin, stated honestly, sold alongside the retractable line.
Browse the dealer catalogEvery retractable awning and motorized power screen a Chicago dealer sells carries the 15-year factory warranty. Patio covers are not sold through dealers; AJ Shades sells and installs those itself in Southern California only. Coverage varies by product and component, and your proposals state each warranty exactly where it belongs. Explore wholesale pricing and the national dealer network for the full program picture.
Territory opportunity
The Chicago market, neighborhood by neighborhood
Four distinct selling lanes inside one city limit.
The rooftop deck lane. Thousands of flat-roof garages and new-build rooftops stretch from Fulton Market through Ukrainian Village to Avondale, and nearly all of them are unusable on a windy July afternoon without wind control. Motorized screens are the unlock product, and the dealer who measures rooftops confidently, parapets, steel, and drainage included, takes this lane almost uncontested.
The bungalow belt lane. The historic Chicago bungalow, brick, octagon-front, with a deep rear yard, repeats by the tens of thousands from Irving Park to Ashburn. These owners keep homes for thirty years and buy once, buy right. A retractable awning over the back patio, sold on the 15-year warranty and American-made construction, fits their buying temperament exactly.
The lakefront and restaurant lane. From the patios along the Riverwalk to neighborhood dining strips on Milwaukee Avenue, in Andersonville on Clark Street, and along 18th Street in Pilsen, Chicago hospitality lives outdoors from May to October and loses tables whenever lake wind or a passing storm rolls in. Commercial retractable systems and screens give operators control of their own weather, and commercial tickets anchor a dealer's season.
The historic and landmark lane. Chicago's landmark districts and historic-review blocks, from Pullman in the far south to the mansions of Kenwood, require shade that respects the facade. Cassette systems that disappear when closed, plus a dealer who can document mounting for permit and review conversations, win work that discount installers cannot even quote. Apply today and tell us which lanes your crew already works.
Why partner with AJ Shades
The Chicago edge
A wholesale line built for the way this city actually lives outdoors.
1. No local wholesale competitor. Chicago's awning names are retail fabricators and installers selling their own labor. None of them recruits dealers, supplies a wholesale line, or hands a contractor a protected city territory. You would be the program, not another bidder in it.
2. Weather is your salesperson. Lake-effect wind, humid ninety-degree stretches, freeze-thaw cycles, and November storms make the retractable argument for you. Fixed shade fails here in ways every Chicago homeowner has watched happen on their own block; shade that seals away for winter sells itself.
3. Density compounds referrals. In two-flat and courtyard neighborhoods, one visible installation is seen by dozens of households sharing the same alley, the same block club, and the same building stock. A single greystone job in Logan Square markets you to the entire street without another dollar of advertising.
4. Your name, your margin. No franchise buy-in, no royalties, no ad funds. You buy at wholesale, sell as your own Chicago company, and keep the whole margin, building equity in a business you own outright.
5. Veteran-owned, American-made, warranted in writing. The factory story matters in a city full of union halls, veterans' posts, and multigenerational trades families. Training, measuring support, and same-day technical help stand behind the 15-year warranty on retractable awnings and motorized power screens.
Running a remodeling crew, a deck company, or an outdoor-living shop anywhere from Rogers Park to Hegewisch? The dealer program was built for crew-led trades ready to add a premium shade line.
Apply to Become a DealerQuestions first? Text AJ Shades at (909) 325-3110, or call Richard Gutierrez, Project Manager, at (949) 378-6642 - Se habla espanol.
Dealer playbook
The Chicago dealer playbook
Sell the season the lake gives you, and winterize like you mean it.
Book the spring rush early. Chicago homeowners start planning rooftops and patios when the lakefront paths fill in April, and install calendars close by Memorial Day. Dealers who run measuring appointments through March and April, while competitors wait for the first hot week, own the profitable half of the season.
Make winterization a product, not a chore. An October visit to retract, inspect, and seal every cassette you installed becomes a service relationship, a referral engine, and the moment customers add screens or a second system for the side yard. In freeze-thaw country, the dealer who shows up in the fall gets the spring phone call.
Work the block, not just the lead. Chicago buys through block clubs, parish networks, and aldermanic word of mouth. Sponsor the neighborhood festival, measure two homes on the same street in one trip, and let the bungalow belt's density do your marketing. Every finished job should be photographed, with permission, against the brick and limestone your next ten customers recognize as home.
Chicago dealer FAQ
Questions Chicago businesses ask us
How do I become an AJ Shades dealer in Chicago?
Is the AJ Shades dealer program a franchise?
What products can Chicago dealers sell?
Do Chicago dealers need to carry inventory?
How do retractable awnings handle Chicago winters, lake wind, and freeze-thaw?
What support do Chicago dealers get?
Nearby Illinois dealer territories
Free estimate • No pressure
Chicago's dealer seat is open.
Wholesale shade systems for Chicago dealers: American-made retractable awnings, motorized power screens, and awning recovers from a veteran-owned factory, with training and warranty support behind every sale.
Text AJ Shades
(909) 325-3110
Built by Family. Designed for Yours.
Owned
Made
on awnings & screens
five-star reviews
CSLB #951583