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Dealer Network · Vermont · Chittenden County

Become an AJ Shades Dealer in Chittenden County

Chittenden County: 170,851 people, the Lake Champlain lakefront premium belt, and Vermont's densest concentration of buyers ready for motorized shade.

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Prefer text? Text AJ Shades at (909) 325-3110

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Veteran
Owned

American
Made

15-Year Warranty
on awnings & screens

605
five-star reviews

Licensed Since 2010
CSLB #951583

Prefer to talk it through? Text (909) 325-3110 (TEXT-only) or call Richard Gutierrez, Project Manager, at (949) 378-6642 (Se habla espanol).

Chittenden County is the biggest dealer territory in Vermont, and it is not close. The county holds 170,851 residents, with Burlington at 44,432, South Burlington at 21,713, and Colchester at 17,807 anchoring a market that blends lakefront wealth, university professionals, and dense suburban streets. For a shade dealer, density is everything: more doors per mile, shorter drive times between consults, and referral streets where one visible install sells the next three. No other Vermont county gives you that math.

The premium belt runs along Lake Champlain. Charlotte and Shelburne lead the county's luxury tier, with South Burlington, Jericho, Williston, and Hinesburg close behind in the high-value bracket. These are lake-view decks and big suburban patios owned by buyers who already buy premium everything else. Shelburne tells the story in one stat line: 62% detached single-family homes, 73.6% homeownership, 6.9% veterans. High ownership, high tenure, high willingness to invest in the house. That is the exact buyer profile for motorized retractables and power screens.

The competitive gap is structural. Otter Creek Awnings has sold from 19 Echo Place in Williston for 45-plus years, billing itself as Vermont’s number-one awning company, and Sun Shield Products (est. 2009, 4.9 stars) and North Country Awnings (est. 2010) round out the local pro set. Every one of them is a retail or installer shop. None of them offers an independent wholesale dealer program for the motorized line: no way for a Burlington contractor to buy premium retractables and power screens at dealer pricing, sell under his own name, and keep the margin. That lane is empty, and it is the lane this program was built to fill.

Vermont buyers close on trust, and trust here has a specific shape: the winter-retract routine, the wind sensor’s automatic response to a Champlain gust, and Somfy-powered motors they have heard of before they ever meet you. The consult answers the cost question without figures: a free in-home estimate, financing with rates as low as 0% for 24 months for qualified buyers, and the fifteen-year factory warranty on retractable awnings and motorized power screens. Buyers who have watched a bargain awning die in one lake-effect season buy the system that protects itself.

Dealer economics favor the operator who installs. AJ Shades’ own installation crews cover Southern California only, so every Chittenden County project belongs to the dealer: your crew measures and installs, or you run it through trusted local contractors. Williston and Essex Junction subdivisions give you the volume streets, the lakefront belt gives you the ticket size, and UVM-area professionals give you the year-round consult pipeline. Bug-season porch enclosures are the natural second sale on nearly every lakefront job, doubling the value of each customer you already paid to acquire.

The product line

What Chittenden County dealers sell

Motorized shade for the lakefront belt and the suburbs.

Motorized Power Screens

Zip-track screens that drop over lakefront porches and suburban patios: shade, privacy, and blackfly-season bug control at a button. In Chittenden, the screen pitch wins the Charlotte and Shelburne porches where the view is the asset and the insects are the problem.

See power screens for dealers

Full-Cassette Awnings

Full-cassette retractable awnings for Chittenden dealers who sell on engineering. The sealed housing protects fabric and arms through pollen season and lake-effect weather, retracts before the first snow, and carries the fifteen-year factory warranty.

See cassette awnings

Open-Roll Retractable Awnings

Open-roll retractable awnings for Chittenden: motorized on-demand shade, sensor-driven storm protection, and the fifteen-year factory warranty. The accessible entry to the premium line for Williston and Essex Junction decks.

Browse the dealer catalog

The 15-year factory-serviced warranty covers every retractable awning and motorized power screen in the catalog, American-made, veteran-owned, and the sentence that closes comparison shoppers from Burlington to Charlotte. Coverage varies by product and component. Awning recover service for existing frames rounds out what Chittenden dealers offer.

Patio covers are not part of the dealer lineup.

Territory opportunity

The lakefront-belt market

Premium shoreline, dense suburbs, university professionals.

Start with Burlington’s lakefront and hill neighborhoods. The city’s 44,432 residents include the county’s densest professional buyer base, and the west-facing streets above the lake take the hardest afternoon sun in the county. Own the visible decks here and the UVM-area professional network carries your name into every surrounding town.

Work the Charlotte and Shelburne shoreline. Million-dollar listings mean buyers who choose on quality first and ask about the warranty second. The fifteen-year factory warranty on the awning and screen line is the sentence that ends their comparison, and the bug-season screen is the second sale that doubles the job.

Cover Williston and Essex Junction. These are the volume streets: dense subdivisions of newer decks, young professional families, and the county’s shortest drive times between consults. The open-roll retractable is the volume product here, and one Saturday of visible installs can fill a month of referrals.

Hold South Burlington, Colchester, Jericho, and Hinesburg. South Burlington’s high-value housing stock and Colchester’s 17,807 residents put premium and volume in the same week’s route. Jericho and Hinesburg add the acreage decks where bigger projections mean bigger tickets, all inside one written territory.

Why partner with AJ Shades

The Chittenden edge

Vermont's largest territory, an empty wholesale lane, and buyers who buy premium.

1. The biggest seat in the state. 170,851 residents in one written territory, with Burlington, South Burlington, and Colchester inside it. No other Vermont county offers this density of doors, and the territory is protected in your dealer agreement.

2. A wholesale lane nobody owns. The established local shops are retail and installer operations, some with decades behind them. None hands an independent contractor dealer pricing on the motorized line. You sell premium product under your own name with nobody between you and the factory.

3. The premium belt pays for quality. Charlotte and Shelburne listings tell you what these buyers spend on their homes. Show the sealed cassette, demonstrate the sensor, state the fifteen-year warranty, and the lakefront buyer stops comparing.

4. Bug season is a second sale. Blackflies and mosquitoes shut down lakefront porches every year. The motorized screen reopens them, and it sells best to the customer who just bought the awning. Your average ticket climbs without a new lead.

5. Your capital stays yours. Build-to-order manufacturing means you sell from the catalog and fabric samples, not a warehouse shelf. Chittenden dealers take deposits, order to the job, and keep their money working in the business.

Lead with your install team in Burlington? The contractor program is built for crew-led contractors, and many Vermont partners combine it with the dealer program. See the full dealer benefits rundown before you apply.

Apply to Become a Dealer

Chittenden dealer FAQ

Questions Chittenden businesses ask us

Can I leave my retractable awning out during a Vermont winter?

No, and that is exactly the selling point. Retractable awnings roll away before the first snow, so the fabric never carries a snow load and the arms never sit under ice. The winter-retract routine takes about a minute: extend for the season in May, retract for the season in November. Dealers in Chittenden County teach that routine on every install, and buyers along the lakefront trust it because it is honest -- the awning you put away for winter is the awning that still looks new in spring.

Do retractable awnings make sense in Vermont's climate?

They make more sense here than fixed shade does. Vermont gets a genuine shade season -- May through October of hard lake-reflected sun on south and west exposures -- followed by months where any fixed canopy would be buried. A retractable gives Burlington and South Burlington homeowners the full summer of coverage and disappears before the first nor'easter. The wind sensor handles the in-between days: sudden Champlain gusts retract the awning automatically, so the buyer never has to watch the sky.

Can motorized screens make a Vermont lake-house porch usable in bug season?

That is their best use case in Chittenden County. Blackfly season and the summer mosquito hatch can shut down a lakefront porch for weeks, right when buyers want to be outside most. Zip-track motorized screens drop at a button and seal the porch against insects while keeping the lake view and the breeze. Lakefront buyers in Charlotte and Shelburne routinely buy the awning first and add the screens as the second sale once they feel the difference one evening makes.

Is this an awning franchise?

No. The AJ Shades dealer program is wholesale, not a franchise: there is no franchise fee, no royalty on your sales, no mandated advertising spend, and no territory rent. You buy American-made retractable awnings and motorized power screens at dealer pricing and sell them under your own business name across Chittenden County. The veteran-owned factory backs you with training, samples, and the 15-year factory warranty on the awning and screen line -- but the business, the brand on the truck, and the margin are yours.

How does dealer territory exclusivity work?

Your territory is drawn with you, not around you. We sit down with a map of where you already work -- Burlington, South Burlington, Colchester, Williston, Essex Junction, wherever your referral streets run -- and put that coverage in writing. Homeowner inquiries that come to AJ Shades from inside your written territory go to your business exclusively. Chittenden is Vermont's largest county at 170,851 residents, so the written territory here is a genuinely valuable asset, and it is protected in the dealer agreement.

What products do AJ Shades dealers sell?

Retractable awnings, motorized power screens, and awning recover service for existing frames -- the motorized shade line, built in America and backed by the 15-year factory warranty on retractables and power screens. Patio covers are not part of the dealer lineup. That focus is deliberate: every product in the catalog is one your install crew can measure, order, and install without a second trade, which keeps your close cycle short and your callbacks near zero.

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Chittenden County’s dealer seat is open.

Wholesale shade systems for Chittenden County dealers: American-made retractable awnings and motorized power screens, veteran-owned factory, training, and a 15-year factory warranty on the awning and screen line.

Text AJ Shades

(909) 325-3110

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Built by Family. Designed for Yours.

Veteran
Owned

American
Made

15-Year Warranty
on awnings & screens

605
five-star reviews

Licensed Since 2010
CSLB #951583