Andrew Burgess and I established Solar Juice as a wholesale distributor of complete solar systems: solar PV panels, solar inverters, battery storage, mounting systems and balance of systems. But we always knew that in an ever more digitised world, we’d need to have a dedicated online ordering service.
So we created Solar Outlet, with live stock levels, instant shipping quotes and 24/7 ordering. It’s been a great run so far, and thanks in part to our partnership with AC Solar Warehouse, we’ve been able to offer more and more products to Australian Solar Installers online. Solar Outlet now offers hundreds of individual products from a large number of quality Solar companies.
I’ve known OpenSolar’s co-founder Birchy for around 20 years, way back from our time together at BP Solar. We were both stationed meters apart, within a few cubicles. From time to time we used to compare pricing notes for upstream materials and Solar Panels.
I’ve watched his career with support and interest and I was psyched when he started OpenSolar in Australia with his mate Adam Pryor. Since then, I’ve seen OpenSolar go from strength to strength not just Down Under but around the world. They’ve amassed a massive contractor network who seems to live on the OpenSolar platform, running their designs, sales and project management.
Integrating the Solar Outlet and OpenSolar platforms seemed like an obvious step for us to take - a real “1 + 1 = 3” moment. The teams have worked feverishly to create a super slick experience for our mutual customers. I love how much easier it is now to order hardware right from your sold projects without having to put down one tool and pick up another or manually transfer data across platforms. One Aussie installer even went as far as describing the experience as “easier than ordering a pizza online”.
I think it’s important that if you’re going to run a solar business, especially in such a critical time, then your workflow had better be as simple and easy as possible. I reckon that’s what we’ve accomplished with this partnership. I would like to express my gratitude to Henry Mandorla and the whole Solar Juice team and say thanks to the OpenSolar crew for a great bit of work together.