Trade Service was founded in 1931 to offer an information platform to the electrical supplies industry, consisting of product and pricing information, organized into a common, easy-to-use format, on which the market's trading partners could conduct business. In the years that followed, the company deployed this highly successful model within other industries as well, including plumbing & mechanical, industrial (mill supplies), automotive, and office products.

Trade Service, always looking for innovative ways to serve its customers, continues to stay ahead of the demand curve within all its markets. What began as a simple printed price book used by thousands of distributors and contractors in the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's and 1960's has evolved into fully automated solutions, including electronic desktop references, on-line business system updating, and robust, searchable and illustrated content used within sophisticated e-commerce catalogs.

The company is proud to have played an active role in many notable industry achievements and helping to further a wide range of initiatives including: the establishment of the revolutionary UPC coding system used in EDI and barcoding applications, the development of expanded product content needed for improved product identification and e-commerce and the creation of industry standard data formats adopted by business system providers to more effectively serve their client base.

	Trade Service headquarters, San Diego, California.

The following are noteworthy milestones in Trade Service's history which document the company's evolution from its inception to the present day. Many iterations of what have become industry standards in product and pricing resources were developed in the early years of the company’s development. However, for the purposes of this historical account, only the highlights will be referenced.

• Trade Service was founded in 1931 by Argyle H. “Bill” Gudie in Los Angeles, California. The company published its first product to electrical contractors which was eventually named the Biddle Book.
  
  
• The Electrical Trade Book, and the Electrical Sales & Service Manual, published in 1958 and 1967 respectively, are two benchmark electrical industry publications, still in wide use today. They serve the pricing needs of contractors and government offices.
  
  
• In 1968, through an acquisition of RAC Publishing Co., Trade Service expanded its reach into the Air Conditioning, Refrigeration and Heating industry with two new services: the ARH Price Directory and the ARH Service Biller.
  
  
• Trade Service spearheaded a major industry development in 1971, with the introduction of its Computerized Price File Maintenance Service (PFMS). PFMS offered distributors a way to electronically update their inventory product and price records, allowing invoices to be processed coincident with the industry’s price changes. This one change in a distributor’s operation substantially reduced data errors, enhanced productivity, and increased profitability. The days of manual file maintenance were effectively over.

	Early tools of the trade.

• After 1971, Trade Service began maintaining all its price file data within a large computer database. This precipitated the creation of a new, comprehensive, computer-generated publication for distributors and contractors. In 1972 and 1973, the company published its ever-popular Electrical Distributor Price Directory and Electrical Supplies Price Directories respectively.
  
  
• The company broke ground in the Plumbing industry in 1981 with the acquisition of Modern Price Book Service.
  
  
• In 1983, Trade Service went “down under” and acquired Trade Service of Australia, Pty., Ltd., Brisbane, Australia, publishers of the Electrical Contractors Pricing Manual and the VideoSource Catalog.
  
  
• Also in 1983, the company began serving the automotive aftermarket through its acquisition of Nu-Way Automotive System, Inc., Columbus, Ohio.
  
  
• Just as the Electrical Trade Book became the definitive printed pricing resource for the electrical industry in 1958, its electronic counterpart, coined TRA-SER (an acronym for TRAde SERvice), appeared in 1985, quickly becoming the industry’s most used electronic price book. Our newest TRA-SER, TRA-SER Premier, can stand alone as a comprehensive desktop reference, as well as provide a dynamic link that electronically updates a business’s estimating software.
  
  
• In 1990, Trade Service added to its array of services for the plumbing industry by acquiring the Plumbing & Mechanical Division of Moore Services, Inc.
  
  
• Just one year later, the company ventured into a brand new industry and market through its acquisition of Moore Office Products, providers of informational services to the Office Products industry.
  
  
• 1991 also saw the company enter the Canadian marketplace by deploying a Canadian version of some of its popular printed and electronic services to this country’s electrical business segment.

	The beginning of PFMS.

• At the turn of the millennium, Trade Service launched its eDataFlex family of products, taking industry content development to the next level to fuel e-commerce and web storefront applications. This event virtually transformed the delivery of electronic product and pricing content from certain basic elements used within enterprise applications such as inventory maintenance, procurement, and invoicing, to a robust and expanded content platform, including detailed technical product descriptions, product cross-references, full color images, and manufacturer catalog pages. eDataFlex opened the door for distributors to begin serving a new breed of customer, who demanded automated access to the distributor’s services and product-line, through a full-functioning Internet catalog.

• eDataFlex was expanded in 2003 to include services to the industrial (mill supplies) market as well.
  
  
• In 2005, a web version of one of the company’s most popular products, Comparator, was launched as Comparator Web, introducing an online product cross-reference service to the electrical industry.
  
  
• In 2006, Trade Service acquired O/PUS, allowing the company to provide its industry-leading office products content to all O/PUS customers and extend its unique level of service.

As new key milestones are attained and added to Trade Service’s historical record, they will be appended above.