How can Current Connected improve?

[HighTechLab]

The main thing for me right now is on mobile it is very hard to reach the sub catagories in your navigation menu

YES! I finally dug into this this morning. 6 lines of code to fix it but figuring out those 6 lines took me about 2 hours . Should go live tonight.

access to more of the CALB catalog?

The new 280ah cells are coming in about 4 months. Unfortunately CALB does not provide them in the -B (bolt terminal) model, since their bolted connection is not rated for 280a (1c rate). Since we use them for solar at far below 1c rates, I have an order placed that will be going to SOK's factory so they can weld me on some terminals and then send them on one of our upcoming containers.

I've got to say your rapid growth is well deserved

John, you are the best. The canvas photos you sent me are hanging on the wall in the family room.

even with the occasional fed ex problems.

Gah! Kills me to hear this...but we did try pretty much every shipping company and sadly FedEx has statistically been the most reliable. I swear if we ran a shipping company with our customer service, we'd make billions.

Similar to ordering directly from Midnite.

We do have the inventory tracking down at this point! Our warehouse manager is top-notch, and always lets us know when we are anywhere near concerned about running low on things. Also, we are signed on with Midnite to offer their products...I probably should start looking for a catalog manager to help get all the products listed.

Personally, I would like to see more stuff on the shack

That would mean we would need more returns...which...yeah, we don't want that!

considered offering more economical kits?

Absolutely! We have been trying to grow our kits offerings across the board and keeping them listed in a logical manner. A staffing bottleneck at the moment. I've been working on getting more help in tech support first, before expanding our offerings, so we don't sacrifice support for sales.

It should be something like:
- a complete set of docs (datasheet, installation, operations, troubleshooting, safety/security, and warranty)

Great idea! By the way we just revised the SOK manual about 2 weeks ago. It is still highly interactive for further reading which would suffer if you saved as a PDF, however, you can get the important content printing to PDF. We did this originally because Jakiper was ripping off everything we published, so I didn't want them just slapping their logo on the manual that I wrote to differentiate ourselves.

Get that SOK server rack battery working perfectly with SMA Sunny Island.

That perfectly part is the issue. SMA is not registering SOC% below 20%...no matter what we tell the inverter it's not listening. The rest of the bugs have been worked out.

Come up with a high voltage battery solution

Yes. Soon. A better rack for 48v too.

A couple things I'd like to see:

I agree with your list, except the JBD's. JBD screwed us over on our last order and about 300x 16S BMSs were nearly unusable. They also changed various design aspects mid-production run that made an even bigger mess for us.

Consider taking paypal as a form of payment

We used to. They messed up on our tax documents out of their own stupidity and put constant holds on our money for quite a long time. The holds alone forced us to take out a kneecap business loan when we were getting started in COVID. Did you know PayPal's outsources their tax department to a company in Ireland? Yeah, all of our confidential business information handled by a third party in a different country without our consent. I'm still salty about PayPal's horrible practices. Stripe is used by a lot of large companies and offer essentially the same buyer protection as PayPal without trying to put the sellers out of business. -endrant



I greatly appreciate everyone's feedback and am even happier to see that some of our ideas are inline with what is being requested!

 

[Rednecktek]

I agree with your list, except the JBD's. JBD screwed us over on our last order and about 300x 16S BMSs were nearly unusable. They also changed various design aspects mid-production run that made an even bigger mess for us.

Ok, that would be a good reason not to carry them. ?

 

[Shimmy]

Would love to see a 300Ah/16s server-rack style battery that can be mounted on its end and easily connected with a horizontal busbar (without blocking switches or screens). If you want to go all nuts, make a c-section of sheet metal with middle and end closure that can field-encase live parts and offer a mounting location for a main isolation switch, fuse, and shunt.

And, if you are into selling unicorns or ponies, get the base battery UL-listed.

Other than that, some of the prices are a little on the high side, so keep up the "get what you pay for" performance. Not sure if some of that can be overcome by bundling and packaging tested sets of integration.

I would avoid the "every day is a special" thing and other social gimmicks some of your competitors have.

 

[jcbarr23]

We used to. They messed up on our tax documents out of their own stupidity and put constant holds on our money for quite a long time. The holds alone forced us to take out a kneecap business loan when we were getting started in COVID. Did you know PayPal's outsources their tax department to a company in Ireland? Yeah, all of our confidential business information handled by a third party in a different country without our consent. I'm still salty about PayPal's horrible practices. Stripe is used by a lot of large companies and offer essentially the same buyer protection as PayPal without trying to put the sellers out of business. -endrant

PayPal is the absolute worst to deal with as a merchant. I once had $40,000 put on hold for 6 months over absolutely nothing.

 

[zcskywire2]

The new 280ah cells are coming in about 4 months.

So glad to hear this..I have a need to source real EV 71173207 style batteries with single m6 studs often. EVE moving to double studs has started to make that much harder.

While on the topic of those l173f280 cells, do they make a 305 version. There's a lot of uncertainty floating around on that and I figured you were the best to ask since you have an almost direct line.

Lastly congrats on the website bug fix, as a coder by trade I feel your pain.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

They messed up on our tax documents out of their own stupidity and put constant holds on our money for quite a long time.

PayPal as a Business receipt is ridiculous.

I still have an account but it’s a cold day in hell when I use them to receive money.

They held $20,000 of mine for 30 days and that’s the last time I ever used them for that.

 

[Lt.Dan]

The new 280ah cells are coming in about 4 months. Unfortunately CALB does not provide them in the -B (bolt terminal) model, since their bolted connection is not rated for 280a (1c rate). Since we use them for solar at far below 1c rates, I have an order placed that will be going to SOK's factory so they can weld me on some terminals and then send them on one of our upcoming containers.

This was going to be the one and only thing I recommend is 280ah cells. But I know the DIY Cell market is kind of dying and the server rack batteries are taking off, so I didn't mention it. Knowing you have cells will be great. Especially direct from CALB.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I've only made a couple purchases so far but will continue to make more in the future. Glad to here you are expanding what's available.
How about opening a warehouse in the Northeast, maybe even the central PA area, to allow customers to save on shipping / increase sales further due to cheaper shipping.

 

[Horsefly]

Consider taking paypal as a form of payment. I avoid purchasing from small vendors using credit cards directly at all cost. The only way I do it is if I absolutely can't get the product anywhere else.

You have me very curious. Your "I avoid..." sentence made me think you were trying to save the small vendor's from the merchant fees associated with credit cards. But then your last sentence makes it clear that isn't why you avoid using credit cards at small vendors. So what exactly is your reason?

I'm not poking at you. I just think I'm being dense.

 

[jcbarr23]

You have me very curious. Your "I avoid..." sentence made me think you were trying to save the small vendor's from the merchant fees associated with credit cards. But then your last sentence makes it clear that isn't why you avoid using credit cards at small vendors. So what exactly is your reason?

I read it as a security concern. Smaller businesses less likely to have strong controls over the number?

 

[Bluedog225]

paypal is terrible for sellers. literally anybody else.

 

[HighTechLab]

on the topic of those l173f280 cells, do they make a 305 version

CALB historically is about 8-10% over design capacity, just like EVE 304 is closer to 310ah. Anyone selling them as a 305ah is not exactly lying, but not advertising them to spec.

I would avoid the "every day is a special" thing and other social gimmicks some of your competitors have.

10000% agree. We also don't send marketing emails twice a week, beg for reviews of every item, and push the "you may have left an item in your cart".

 

[cs1234]

I don't doubt paypal is bad to deal with as a merchant. I was approaching his question from the standpoint of a customer. From a customer standpoint, paypal is easy to deal with. Paypal itself isn't necessarily my favorite, I prefer to purchase everything through Amazon for the additional buyer protections and return/exchange policy protections it offers me. I can even purchase relatively inexpensive 3rd party exchange warranties on questionable solar equipment vs having to deal with the manufacturers and their "warranties".

I don't like his return policy disclaimers either, but I didn't want to open that can of worms at the time. It's not that they are horribly unfair, or unusual for a small business like his, but they pale in comparison to what I get purchasing stuff off Amazon.

I simply don't like entering credit card details onto small website pages that look like his does. I'm sure he's a swell guy, fine and upstanding, but it just looks unsafe, whether it is or not. It looks (probably isn't the case) like he might be transmitting all that payment and billing info somewhere else for later processing, either into a backend database or emailing it to an orders@currentconnected.com for his sales people to process, as opposed to immediately pushing it through a third party processor where he never sees the card info or retains it. I don't trust small websites with my credit card and billing info combined.

I understand he probably saves a bit of money and headache not taking something like paypal, or stripe, or amazon pay or any of the other big names. Everything has a cost though. In this case, it's people like me not necessarily wanting to shop at his site. Judging from y'alls reactions though, he is probably doing fine and I'm the odd man out, at least for this particular industry and customer base. Who knows, some of you probably even prefer to call and order over the phone.

I must make the disclaimer though, I am not trying to disparage him or his business in any way. He has done me no harm, I am just offering advice based on the impression his site gives me.

If it's any consolation, I have doofy reasons for not purchasing anything from Signature Solar also. Their website particularly annoys me in that I don't even see the payment methods until submitting a bunch of other information first. If they take paypal, like they say in their FAQ, I shouldn't have to submit any personal information first, paypal should provide them all that info via API when I select the paypal payment button. I understand they will have my info anyway when paypal gives it to them so they can ship it.. but I don't want to have to type it in if I don't have to.

EDIT: I understand that given the nature of some of the things being shipped, and presentation of data on the websites, that they might want an address/zip first to determine shipping/freight rates. If they took the address info from paypal after you hit the button, they would have to redirect to another page / update the page with freight/shipping info charges, and then submit to paypal again for final confirmation. They might not want to do this, but that is a way to do it regarding shipping charges.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

I don't doubt paypal is bad to deal with as a merchant. I was approaching his question from the standpoint of a customer. From a customer standpoint, paypal is easy to deal with. Paypal itself isn't necessarily my favorite, I prefer to purchase everything through Amazon for the additional buyer protections and return/exchange policy protections it offers me. I can even purchase relatively inexpensive 3rd party exchange warranties on questionable solar equipment vs having to deal with the manufacturers and their "warranties".

I don't like his return policy disclaimers either, but I didn't want to open that can of worms at the time. It's not that they are horribly unfair, or unusual for a small business like his, but they pale in comparison to what I get purchasing stuff off Amazon.

I simply don't like entering credit card details onto small website pages that look like his does. I'm sure he's a swell guy, fine and upstanding, but it just looks unsafe, whether it is or not. It looks (probably isn't the case) like he might be transmitting all that payment and billing info somewhere else for later processing, either into a backend database or emailing it to an orders@currentconnected.com for his sales people to process, as opposed to immediately pushing it through a third party processor where he never sees the card info or retains it. I don't trust small websites with my credit card and billing info combined.

I understand he probably saves a bit of money and headache not taking something like paypal, or stripe, or amazon pay or any of the other big names. Everything has a cost though. In this case, it's people like me not necessarily wanting to shop at his site. Judging from y'alls reactions though, he is probably doing fine and I'm the odd man out, at least for this particular industry and customer base. Who knows, some of you probably even prefer to call and order over the phone.

I must make the disclaimer though, I am not trying to disparage him or his business in any way. He has done me no harm, I am just offering advice based on the impression his site gives me.

If it's any consolation, I have doofy reasons for not purchasing anything from Signature Solar also. Their website particularly annoys me in that I don't even see the payment methods until submitting a bunch of other information first. If they take paypal, like they say in their FAQ, I shouldn't have to submit any personal information first, paypal should provide them all that info via API when I select the paypal payment button. I understand they will have my info anyway when paypal gives it to them so they can ship it.. but I don't want to have to type it in if I don't have to.

Problem With PayPal isn’t the customer.

They hold a significant portion of the payment for a long time of the person selling.

That impacts paying suppliers, Employees, Ect.

I use them to buy stuff but not receive payment from.

 

[cs1234]

I use them to buy stuff but not receive payment from.

So you and me are part of the problem, supporting paypal by using it to buy stuff from vendors that offer it.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

So you and me are part of the problem, supporting paypal by using it to buy stuff from vendors that offer it.

The problem is they don’t process the payments to the vendor in an timely manner.

Do they do that to everyone or just us small businesses? Dunno..

Why they do that I have no idea but it’s hardly our fault.

 

[Adam De Lay]

YES! I finally dug into this this morning. 6 lines of code to fix it but figuring out those 6 lines took me about 2 hours . Should go live tonight.

Awesome!

 

[jcbarr23]

I simply don't like entering credit card details onto small website pages that look like his does. I'm sure he's a swell guy, fine and upstanding, but it just looks unsafe, whether it is or not. It looks (probably isn't the case) like he might be transmitting all that payment and billing info somewhere else for later processing, either into a backend database or emailing it to an orders@currentconnected.com for his sales people to process, as opposed to immediately pushing it through a third party processor where he never sees the card info or retains it. I don't trust small websites with my credit card and billing info combined.

He's using WooCommerce, which sends the credit card # directly to the payment processor (Stripe in this case per what's on the page). So there's no concern -- CC never sees the #.

 

[cs1234]

He's using WooCommerce, which sends the credit card # directly to the payment processor (Stripe in this case per what's on the page). So there's no concern -- CC never sees the #.

Looking at the page source, yes, that does seem to be the case. I guess it's just the old school monochromatic look of his website and purchasing page that led me astray.

I apologize @HighTechLab . However, my first impressions influence my shopping decisions, regardless of how lame they may be. If it influenced me, it might influence others. Probably not though, I am kind of a nut case.

 

[HighTechLab]

apologize @HighTechLab . However, my first impressions influence my shopping decisions, regardless of how lame they may be. If it influenced me, it might influence others. Probably not though, I am kind of a nut case.

Yes, this is good feedback! I was totally messing up our dev site today and by accident disabled some CSS that actually made things suddenly flow a lot nicer! Now I'm taking what I learned and applying it to a new version of the theme and good things are coming of it. If you never gave feedback I would have never touched the page...so thank you!

He's using WooCommerce, which sends the credit card # directly to the payment processor (Stripe in this case per what's on the page). So there's no concern -- CC never sees the #.

That's exactly correct - and our policy is to never take credit cards over the phone either for this exact reason. Our calls are recorded for training purposes and I never want card numbers saved on the recordings. Even though the calls are stored securely, I don't even want someone to think of trying to accuse us of anything.