Retail is something I would like to do. I've done massive searching and actually found some stores around here, but their websites are mostly crap. I'm going to stop by and talk with them. That's at least a start.

BTW this guy ( millions in sales each year) says that there is very little money to be made in residential sales ( industry and government are where the money is) because when home owners find out how much it costs they realize that they can't afford it. Tragic but true, those who need it most are least able to afford it, those who can afford it don't need it.

Carpe Vigor

Then find a few products to resale. Solar heaters, solar pannels, maybe some batteries. The sales are the side line stuff, not the profit stuff in this market, as someone said already, those who need it can't afford it.

Now that your set up as a "PRO" make a video of how to set things up, how to build your own solar heat panels, how to solder (ebay) cells together for solar pannels. Write a small pamphlet book about needed parts for various systems and how they are gennerally connected. Once you have all this done, go to a Big City rent a hotel ballroom and charge $20 for the siminar, get 200 people in and you made your $4000 for the day less the cost of advertising and ballroom rent.
 Your video you made, you have edited on your PC and turned into a DVD and burned a few 100 copies to sell, nicely printed and shrunk wrapped, real high quality looking product! You sell those for about $20 a pop.
 The pamphlet book, depending how good it turns out, nice pro looking book, very detailed, lots of great needed info you sell for a small amount like $5 unless it's really a great book then go more. If you just have a general covering of things to keep people interested but nothing all that great, then give it away as a free gift for attending the seminar.

Well my freinds, NOW you know how the PRO'S make the Real money!!!
Do they actually do anything themselfs?? NO THEY DON'T, they gather materials and make their own, and then Lecture on it for a fee and sell videos and books. Doing 2 lectures/seminars a week, plus the extra sales on books and videos is what makes them rich, not the stuff they are actually telling you about or the product sales (pannels, batteries, inverters).

First make a name, Claim to be the fabulous or great or expert bla bla in the field of * doing a 1 day only seminar on how to reduce your feul needs by 75% and make it sound teriffic. Only $20 per person and YOU will learn how to easily save $300 per month on your electric, heating, and auto expenses.

The first couple lectures don't worry about losing money on, how many other businesses really make a profit in the first 1-2 months of opening? It's those first few lectures though that will build your name for you and bring more people to the future lectures.
 You go to the biggest city and rent the smallest room. The idea of course is if the room only holds 10 people and 15 show up, you have to turn a few away as being sold out. Now Next time you run an ad you can honestly say the Chicago lecture was sold out and people were turned away at the door, better book early :)
If you rent the small room and no one showed up, well just say Your comming direct from the Chigago lecture and don't mention attendance at all. It still sounds good and people assume a big city like that was a big hall of some type.
 Small room for 10-20 people should be cheap, and not need much advertising to fill.
 Maybe rent a banquet room in a small restaurant for $50 for a few hours.
I have for other things :)

But in all honesty, THAT is probably the best way to make money in RE at this time!

 Record yourself building your own system, edit it to look professional, Burn some DVDs, and make some VHS tapes too. If you can actually show how to build things instead of just buying them, windgennies for instance that's even better.
 Make up your own lecture that people will enjoy and learn from. Either do the lecture yourself, or as many others have done just hire a professional speaker to present the lectures for you, if you don't speak well or are afraid of crowds and public speaking. Be there to answer questions and sell videos.

 If you want to sell products also, then set up a couple stores, different names adresses and phone numbers, list one as yours and place the other in with other stores you recommend for variuos items. Best way to do this is find companies that will drop ship from their location with your labels. Not sure about the RE type products but this works very well with most other products and the distributors are often not hard to find. Drop shipping you make a little less profit sometimes, but you have nothing to stock, just take the order and collect the retail price, place the order and pay the wholesale price and shipping.

Having set people up in this area myself in the past, I know what a money maker it is first hand!! Not something I do at this time myself though. But I do have first hand experience on the business end of this, though it was other people doing the seminars on there own things. I simply got them started and once they were rolling I walked away and let them have it.

 Currantly I am "very slowly" making my own videos showing how various illusions are done for magic shows. Sort of how to do magic type of video but not quite. In it are 3 of my own illusions never performed by anyone else. Various problems I am having is getting good amature assitant, and having it NOT look like trick photography. There are no camera tricks, but sometimes it looks like it, figuring out how to prevent that is the real trick! For instance when the girl pops out of the empty box, it's an illusion anyone could do in person, but it looks as if the camera was simply turned off as she got in and turned back on as she gets out. Can't have that type effect!!!

Anyway, the idea of the seminars for RE was the subject, I mention the magic because if I ever get this project completed, I will be doing the siminars myself as mentioned for RE. I will lecture abit on various related parts, do a few demos, a couple fancy illusions, and sell the Videos and books.
 I have no interest in doing full stage shows, but seminars I will do a few of as I feel like it.

 Another nice thing about seminars is you work when you want and don't work when you don't want, just plan ahead! You get to travel all you want, Doing wind mills? I bet Hawaii has a lot of wind! Alot of solar too! Hmmm, free Hawaii vacation, just lecture a few hours durring the week, and what a nice tax deduction too :)

Perhaps that's how I will get to Alaska this year myself :)
 Been wanting to drive up there someday. Hmm, is that 33cents a mile auto deduction still aloughed by the IRS?? Do about 2 lectures a week for 4 weeks, nice business trip.
.
nothing to lose

I do small 1 to 4 panel installations usually. There is a built in market here.

You can't compete with the big guys for most items.
Say a panel retails for $220 online. I may have to pay $200. Then I have to ship them (say another $10). It sounds like I can make $10. But I have to take half a skid to get them for that price. It takes a long time to get rid of half a skid, so much of your profits are lost in interest.

People don't realize the big guys charge you an arm and a leg for shipping, handling and "crating charges".  If you ship one, you'll see why "crating charges" come in (you can't believe how much big flat boxes cost).

If your prices are much higher than online, you won't sell many. A lot higher and you won't sell any.  

About the only way I make any real money is installation. My prices are higher, but are a package price and include installation. And wire, controller, connectors, fuses, staples, screws... everything.  If they want to run a fence and light bulb, there are connections for them built in.  I throw an assortment of 'battery testers' and inverters in the truck... I mean "Car Trunk" (you can't believe how much plates and insurance for commercial use trucks cost here), I can make a couple bucks on them too.

How I got into it.
The local market is all small systems. 32 to 200 watts.
The local stores that carried any PV stuff had a mark up of about $3 a watt! Cash and carry. No tech support. Just a "Good luck with that!". Many were hooked up with lamp cord and duct tape. No kidding.
A friend's father needed one, but didn't understand it enough to hook it up. He asked me to do it. I checked the internet for prices and parts, found them a lot cheaper, hooked it up and made $50.

Word spread. I got calls to hook up other PVs that were all ready bought, or fix systems that weren't right. Then I got calls to supply the stuff and install it.
I found out that a REAL sale on the internet is cheaper than wholesale (NOT the places that always have a 'super sale' going on everything). I got a dozen panels on sale and a case of controllers (Oh my! What was I thinking! Panic set in about then). Now there was a little more profit. It spread from there.
The second through fourth years were busiest when people heard my systems worked better than others (without duct tape and lamp cord, go figure!). My market is stable now that the people who were waiting for a good system have them.
Plus I'll tell them what won't work! No body else does that.
If I just don't want a job, I tell them who can sell the parts for less than me. Usually about those windmills that blow bubbles.

I did things that no one around her could, or wanted $50/hour for design. I do a lot of deticated systems, 1 panel, 1 battery, 1 purpose. I've done solar powered cash registers, wheel chairs, medicial equipment, security systems, school copiers, communication systems, Play Stations... On and on.  Its a very strange market around here.

Bad things are paper work for taxes, sales tax paper work, no insurance, no repeat bussiness (if you do it right, they don't call back, if you do it wrong, they don't call back).

Things I had going for me.
A- I had 5 years at KSU in the electricial and industrial fields.
B- I had a local reputation even before this.
C- I had a waiting niche market.
D- I had money to sit on $thousands in parts, at the time.
E- I work where they do not need inspected, permits, licenses, etc.
F- I was in the right place at the right time. More than once.
G- I went for the small installations that no one else wanted.
H- I didn't need a store with employees, heat, phone, electric, maintaince, etc.
I- I love doing it!

I got into it by accident. The unions prevented me from getting a job in my field, so I wasn't exactally gainfully employed at the time.

I would say start small. Check at the court house to find out if it is even possible where the mailing address will be. Check with the building inspector for what kind of crap you must have to go through  (good luck on that one~ he won't understand it. And NEVER EVER mention 'grid tie' to him!  You can do that later if you need to). It may not even be concievable that you won't go bankrupt from the crap they put you through.

Go for service more than low prices.

Don't expect you, the new guy, to get a contract for that 10kw system somebody is doing. Even if you bid it at half price.

Just my experience. Your mileage may vary.

   So after some travelling, to broaden my perpectives i started an info site. After some time with decent results, my main funding source was cut. So i was faced with a choice; go out and get a regular job or continue working full-time on R.E./A.E. but commercially.

   Well, here i am. My first 2 weeks in 'business' i managed 300$ of sales. I have been finding other people without the heart to push forward in this business and are liquidating thier stock. So far so good as i have avoided all my minimum orders from my real suppliers.

   So far my biggest push is on eliminating disposible batteries from households. I deal mostly with IT types and family figures. The word spreads to IT offices about $$ saved and lead removed from the enviroment and at the homes, word spreads from neighbour to neighnour.

 My very limited business skills are forcing me to take it very slowly :p

 I also dipped into my stock :D and pulled out a 15w that i paid 99$ CDN for. Around here that is unheard of.

  I am finding the local market to very hard on solar. The pro's dont want any bad relations due to low-sun conditions around here so sometimes i actually feel discouraged from trying to sell to customers.

   This thread is going in my favorites for sure.

Car batteries have the same top posts they always had, same side posts they first started making, some even have both. Dought the battery body did that.
Cigerette lighter plugs are about all the same also, not a ciggerette lighter body :)

Other than connecters I dought much needs to be standardized. We all have different needs, not set to any standards. If I need only 700watts power per hour I need smaller cable than someone that needs 1500watts per hr. Also smaller controller, battery bank ect.. Also depends how far I want to run that the size wire I need.

Some of us don't want a 48V system and some do. I want 12V first because it's more versable. I can take out one battery for some other use and still keep the system up, 48v people cannot because then they are 36V and that don't work.
 12V can be charged from a car in an emergency, 48v cannot. I did that last night for awhile on a 3 battery 12V system at a remote house. I pulled those 3 from the bank here at the regular house a few days ago.

Standard products are really only good for people with standard needs, like 120Vac is fine to be a standard because nearly everyone has that or could have that, and the grid is everywhere almost so that has to be a standard. Wouldn't be to good to be 90Vac in Ohio and move to Kentucky and be on 150Vac or Texas and be 60Vac would it.
 Just think of all the problems that would cause at Christmas! Where in 90vac Ohio would you buy a 60Vac DVD player to mail to your brother in Texas? See it all boils down to taxes in the long run! That would cause lost sales of products and no taxes would be collected :)
So grid has to be a standard!!
.
nothing to lose

Despite what the RE wholesalers imply in their ads in Home Power Magazine, it is pissing in the wind trying to start your own RE sales and installation business on the cheap. You need at least 100 grand investment to have a chance at success.

The reason -- you get only 10-20% markup on panels, inverters, controllers, etc. plus what you charge for the install. You pay shipping unless the order is huge, that's the first hit out of your profit margin. Business insurance is next....I used to run without it and it was terrifying! A broken panel or battery on the goat trail way up to the install, and your profit margin is gone. State and local licenses are next, I got around it by paying a local licensed electrician to certify installs. Then tools, supplies and a truck (preferably with a tommylift or crane for moving batteries).

And then, lightning hits near your recent install. Even if grounded and wired to code, they can lose an inverter easily....you remove it, install a backup, pay to ship it back, pay for the repair, pay shipping back to you, remove your backup, and reinstall the repaired one. Your profit is gone, or you've lost money. Inverter warranties don't cover lightning, but you'll never convince the customer of that -- they will blame your wiring of the grounding rod.

THEN, you get a customer that refuses to believe they are not living in town. They run electric toaster ovens, electric deep fryers, 6-foot high Marshall tube guitar amp stacks, and electric portable space heaters off their battery bank all winter. They refuse to read their amp-hour meter. In a year, their $3000 stack of L-16 batteries is ruined, and may be leaking acid on the floor from dead cells freezing. They blame you. I narrowly avoided getting sued over this because I electronically locked the amp-hour meter from being reset and figured the owner was too dumb to read the manual and unlock it. It showed maximum depth of discharge on a 2000 amp/hour battery bank over the winter at 1900 a/h, multiple times, and average depth of discharge of 1200 a/h. duuuh!

I then got out of the business after that and became a surveyor. I lost most of my savings at it, and was flapping in the wind on every install because the product markup couldn't even cover business insurance for each install.

If you can invest a bunch of money in advance for such a business, you can buy panels and inverters in bulk for cheap, get insurance, get the right tools, and have money for advertising.....and have a few years to recoup your investment. If you need your  business to feed you while you get started, good luck! You'll be eating ramen noodles every day.

I'd advise to go get a job with an established RE seller/installer to learn the business!