Paul Roughan, Trade Merchants Sales Director Dulux Trade is BMBI’s Expert for Paint.

Uncertainty and low confidence continued in quarter two, compounded by the Brexit saga. Deal or no deal? Will we or won’t we?

We’re all having to prepare for potential risks to supply after we leave the EU on 31st  October 2019. The potential for delays to deliveries to the UK is one of the main risks so it’s important to work closely with suppliers to ensure they have continuity of supply throughout the second half of the year. Our number one priority is safeguarding the supply and quality of our products and services to our customers, who should continue to order in their normal manner and ordering pattern.

Comparing the trade paint market Q2 19 with Q2 18, the British Coatings Federation reports growth of 3.2%. April and May sales were very strong as we had much better weather than Q2 2018. June was a challenging month though with exterior trim and masonry paint sales down significantly, with nearly three times as many wet days as June 2018.

The performance of the premium emulsion category, which includes durable and scrubbable emulsions rather than standard vinyls and contract emulsions, grew 8% year to date. It’s the fastest growing decorative paints category. This is good news, demonstrating that customers see the benefit of durable emulsions and are prepared to pay more for them. This adds much needed value into the market and benefits us all.

I wanted to finish by mentioning the problem of waste paint in the UK. Fifty million litres of paint goes to waste in the UK every year. That’s approximately 13% of all sales. Sixty four per cent of this is still usable yet only 1% is currently being reused. The average person has 17 used tins in their garage or shed! Community RePaint is a UK-wide paint reuse network that aims to collect this leftover paint and redistribute it to benefit individuals, families and communities at an affordable cost. So, if your customers ask what they can do with their waste paint, there are much better options than leaving it in the garage or storage to gather dust.