News & Events

November, 2019

TED Magazine: CANTEX Names New Vice President of Sales and Marketing

TED Magazine Article Excerpt: FORT WORTH, Texas — CANTEX Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Dave Milius to the role of Vice President Sales & Marketing effective September 30, 2019. Milius brings more than 24 years of electrical distribution sales leadership experience to CANTEX. Prior to accepting his new position at CANTEX, Milius served as Vice President of National Distribution for Signify, formerly North American Philips Lighting. Some of his other sales leadership roles with North American Philips Lighting included the following: Key Accounts Director; Director of Distributor Sales; Sr. Key Accounts Manager; Regional Sales Manager; and National Account Manager. Milius earned his Bachelor’s degree at the ITT Institute of Technology and has extensive experience in electrical equipment design. He also holds patents for ballast circuits that he developed during his early career as an Electrical Design Engineer. “I am very pleased to welcome Dave Milius to CANTEX to lead our sales and marketing team. His extensive experience at leading sales teams and his ability to implement strategies that lead to growth will certainly benefit our organization,” said Dave Merker, President of ... Read Full Post

August, 2019

TED Magazine: CANTEX Names New President

TED Magazine Article Excerpt: FORT WORTH, Texas — CANTEX Inc. announced that Dave Merker, former Vice President of Sales and Marketing for CANTEX, has been named President of CANTEX effective August 8, 2019. Merker succeeds Don Wirtanen as President, after Wirtanen’s untimely passing in July. Merker’s extensive sales and management experience in the electrical distribution industry, including 28 years at CANTEX, make him ideally suited to lead CANTEX. Moreover, it is Merker’s ability to implement and manage business strategies to meet the evolving market demands that make Merker the best person to lead CANTEX into the next decade. Wirtanen hired Merker in 1991 as the Director of Sales and Marketing/Electrical. In 2001, Merker was promoted to Vice President of Sales and Marketing, the position he held until he was named President last week. Wirtanen and Merker became an incredible team that helped lead CANTEX to several of the most profitable years in CANTEX history. This tremendous growth necessitated the development of new manufacturing facilities and distribution centers nationwide, taking CANTEX to the forefront of the PVC electrical product market in the United States. “CANTEX is very ... Read Full Post

July, 2019

Don Wirtanen Honored with Lead Story in TED Magazine

Upon his untimely passing, CANTEX President Don Wirtanen was honored on July 18, 2019 with an article about his passing taking the lead story in TED Magazine, one of the electrical distribution industry’s most prominent trade publications. The article led with TODAY’S TOP STORY in large red capital letters as an honor to Don and his many achievements. Click here to read the article in TED Magazine. TED Magazine Excerpt: CANTEX President Passes Away FORT WORTH, Texas — CANTEX inc. announced yesterday that its longtime President Don Wirtanen passed away at his home in Fort Worth, Texas this week at the age of 66. Wirtanen’s 33-year career at CANTEX began in 1986 as a Product Sales Manager before he was promoted to Director of Sales & Marketing-Electrical in 1990. In 1991, he was promoted to CANTEX Vice President of Sales & Marketing. He then progressed to Executive Vice President & General Sales Manager in 1994 before taking the lead of CANTEX as President in 1995, the position he held until his untimely passing. Wirtanen’s career is marked by several years of record sales for CANTEX ... Read Full Post

June, 2019

Bring Life to Your Electrical Distribution Marketing with Videos

It doesn’t take much research to find out that people watch a tremendous amount of videos today! In fact, some of the craziest videos on YouTube go viral and receive millions of views. 92% of people who watch videos on mobile devices share them with other people according to Forbes Magazine.1 It is all of this sharing that creates limitless opportunities for people to watch YouTube videos. How can all of this video watching help you sell PVC electrical products? According to Small Business Trends, 80% of users remember video ads they viewed in the past 30 days.2 There are several reasons why video ads have better recall percentages than static ads and static website text. Video content is more likely to engage a viewer and ignite a response whether it’s emotional or intellectual. Animated videos tend to be particularly engaging because of nostalgia, simplicity and their entertainment value. With all of the information on the internet today, engaging consumer interest is more important than ever. Similarly, videos are very visual and auditory, making it easier for users to remember ... Read Full Post

June, 2019

CANTEX LAUNCHES A NEW FULL LINE PVC ELECTRICAL PRODUCT PRINT CATALOG

CANTEX Inc. is pleased to announce the launch of our new and improved full product line print catalog. This is the first CANTEX full product line print catalog to contain the CANTEX PVC electrical product line in its entirety, including all of our newer products from our most recently extended PVC electrical conduit, box and fitting lines. The new catalog is designed to complement the new eCommerce-style website catalog we launched last year. The new CANTEX full line product catalog includes additions to the CANTEX EZ BOX® line of PVC electrical switch, outlet and ceiling boxes. It also includes the latest products added to the EZ FLEX® ENT line with the CANTEX acquisition of JP South. The EZ FLEX line is a comprehensive line of non-metallic flexible tubing and fittings. The new catalog also features additions to the CANTEX Enviro-Flex® liquid-tight PVC conduit & fittings line; as well as updates to our schedule 40 & 80 PVC conduit and fittings scope of products. More of CANTEX’s PVC conduit and fittings for the telephone, power utilities and communications markets and additional product ... Read Full Post

March, 2019

Repeat Customers Buy More and Cost Less---The Importance of Customer Retention

Repeat customers buy products, buy more products and they buy more products year after year. It’s that simple! For the most part, they are the most dependable revenue for most companies. This should be enough of a reason to try to keep them… right? However, there is more value to maintaining existing customers than many companies realize. Customer retention is always cheaper than obtaining new customers. Data consistently shows that it is always much more cost-effective to keep a customer than it is to bring in new customers. According to the Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer depending upon the type of business.1 Customer loyalty is not only less expensive; it also has a better rate of return according to research. No matter where you look, the statistics for the return on investment for existing clients is much better than it is for new customers. “Further, a returning customer purchases 30 percent more items and brings in three to seven times more revenue per order,” according to INC ... Read Full Post

March, 2019

Leverage PVC Electrical Product Improvements---Let Your Customers Know

Evolving customer needs, technological improvements, and customer input are just a few factors that lead manufacturers to the decision to improve a product. At CANTEX, we value what our customers tell us, so we continually seek to make changes when the end-users believe we can improve any of our PVC electrical products. We also pay close attention to construction and technological changes in the industry that necessitate different functionality to make sure we are meeting customer needs. Improvements to our PVC electrical products help keep customers happy and help us to continue to outperform the competition. For over 60 years, the PVC electrical product engineers at CANTEX have stayed ahead of the industry by continually seeking ways to improve product designs for better functionality. They strive to insure that our products exceed industry standards and provide the best solutions for specific applications. CANTEX engineers recently made three such product improvements to our PVC electrical base spacer, intermediate spacer and our ½ and ¾ inch male terminal adapters. We heard from several customers last year that although certain design features of our ... Read Full Post

November, 2018

TED Magazine Reports: CANTEX Invests in Expansions and Hiring to Meet Demand

TED Magazine, the ELECTRICAL DISTRIBUTOR Magazine, published the following article this in November on CANTEX’s recent capital improvements: Click to Read Article in TED Magazine Fort Worth, Texas - After an almost 20% increase in production this year, CANTEX Inc., one of the largest manufacturers of American-made PVC electrical products, is in the middle of a major capital expansion program at its manufacturing plants nationwide. With similar projections for growth over the next three years, the addition of millions of dollars in new equipment is necessary to service the growth of existing accounts and to prepare for a projected influx of new business. 100 jobs have also been added at CANTEX facilities nationwide to help meet increased demand. Blending machines, extrusion and fabrication machines have been added at CANTEX plants in order to keep up with the increased production of CANTEX’s American-made PVC electrical, conduit, fittings, and boxes. This additional equipment will help CANTEX maintain the same level of quality and superior service amidst the significant increase in the sales of PVC conduit, fittings, and boxes. “As a company, CANTEX continues to grow in ... Read Full Post

October, 2018

Keeping the Human Touch in PVC Electrical Product Sales

More Digital Shouldn’t Mean Less Personal in the Information Age... Overall, the Digital Era has been inspiring, fast and inescapable. It is quite amazing how far we’ve come in such a short period of human history. So many of the things we take for granted weren’t even in the realm of possibility just a few decades ago. Today, shoppers can usually learn anything about any product with just a click. Consequently, they do a significant amount of online research before making a purchase.In the last two issues of Industry Insights, we discussed the many benefits of digital marking for sales in the fast-paced Information Age we live in. In this issue, we are actually going to talk about one of the “cons” of online sales and how that “con” can be easily turned into a major “pro” when selling PVC electrical pipe, fittings, boxes and accessories. So what is the big negative or “con” that we face in the wide-open world of digital sales? While most shoppers have become accustomed to the immeasurable amount of product information available on the internet and ... Read Full Post

July, 2018

Empowering Business with Technological Trends (Part 2)...Connecting with the Information Age

Just as you wouldn’t fish for trout in the ocean or for flounder in a freshwater stream, you wouldn’t want to advertise your PVC electrical products without knowing that you are fishing in the right pool of potential customers. Fortunately, in the world of digital marketing, you can target very specific markets and track results using real-time data. Digital tracking also lets you see which ads are working and which ones are not. A day of digital marketing is a lot like any day of fishing, because you can easily change ad locations and ad concepts when you aren’t catching anything or getting any bites. With over 80% of Americans shopping online and even more researching products online before making purchases, you can be almost certain that people clicking on internet ads are more likely ready to purchase than people reading advertisements in magazines in their doctors’ offices or at lunch. After all, what is the first thing most people do today when they want to purchase something? They Google it! As a result of all that Googling, you can ... Read Full Post

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