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sherwin should have net neutrality just like..

5K views 28 replies 14 participants last post by  epretot 
#1 ·
sw should have net neutrality just like the law passed today that says you can not charge more for a faster internet lane or special treatment

All contractors should get the same price vs public..and back up/prove the discount via. lic,insurance or some kind of proof.

That's what my two local ben moores do. keep a even playing field!

Now don't get me wrong regional prices should apply because of shipping.

Hope I don't sound like a Communist.

I once gave a client a price and she said."that's not my price! whats my price?" lol!
 
#5 · (Edited)
Only local hardware stores near me offer a flat rate decent price on their paints for all buyers. And they sell hardly any paint. Every store that is first and foremost a paint store around here as well as the big boxes offer volume-based pricing because to do anything else is just plain dumb for the seller. if SW decided that ProMar 200 was going to be say $20 for everyone, then PPG or Glidden or BM or anyone else could just peg their stuff a buck or two lower and SW is dead in the water. It is in every business' best interest to charge you the most they can charge without you walking. Basic microeconomics.
SW would be crazy to have only one wholesale price from which they never deviate. If you were them and you were after a large painting company spending 300k at PPG, and this company were spending $1.50 less per gallon at PPG than SW standard wholesale price, why on earth would SW say "Oh well, we tried but we just can't go $1.50 lower even to win over a 300k customer". No, they're gonna do whatever they deem fit to try to win over each customer they decide it's worth chasing. There are very few things (if any?) you can buy in life where buying a vastly larger volume will not get you a better price, why should paint be any different?
 
#9 ·
Maybe what the orig poster was getting at was the fact that thers no ryhme nor reason why one contractor pays more than another. Granted the whales that buy huge quantities will get volume discounts and rightly so but imo a huge portion of the contractors fall into smaller companies or even solo painters. a guy can spend 10k a year at SW and and still be able to buy paint off the shelf at a homestore for less for the comparable product. honestly imo the only guys that get good pricing are the ones who constantly complain. Who reallyu wants to be that guy and wy does SW want to make us be that guy? It's kind of a slap in the face to get prices lowered 7$ less a gal back to what you were paying 4 years ago. It's worse than buying a used car at times. I know guys who buy more than me but pay more cause they are nice and polite and dont want to be the guy who bitches about price. Nice guys finish last at SW or any paint store. Heck of a thing when there are guys paying 27$ for 400 or quali kote flat and think that the 8 or 10 dollars more they're paying over what it should cost is for service. I think SW would get more respect if they would put the fire out before it starts with the contractors.
 
#13 ·
There may seem to be no rhyme or reason to their pricing, but there is. They will charge anyone what they think they can get away with, even to the point of the occasional "OOPS" by the part timer. But you also have to realize how many painters will go down the block for 5 cents a gallon. It's amazing to me how much someone has to bitch to get a "decent" and consistent price schedule from SW. And how hard it is to keep that pricing. Never made any sense to me, even when I worked for them. They had 5 or 6 price schedules and never stuck to them. It seemed like every painter had a completely different price, just so they could get an extra buck or two out of a couple of guys. They NEVER wanted us to quote pricing on paint during proshows and such, just because they didn't want painters comparing their pricing.
 
#11 ·
At my store I have a flat contractor rate for contractor grade paint. Premium paints are all sold at shelf price (regardless of who it is), with a generous yearly discount rate directly tied to how much you spent at the store that year. What you get back is directly tied to what you spent. Fair.

If there's a big job, I sometimes do job-specific quotes but it has to be sizable for me to consider it.
 
#14 ·
At my store I have a flat contractor rate for contractor grade paint. Premium paints are all sold at shelf price (regardless of who it is), with a generous yearly discount rate directly tied to how much you spent at the store that year. What you get back is directly tied to what you spent. Fair.

If there's a big job, I sometimes do job-specific quotes but it has to be sizable for me to consider it.
I have a very competitive retail price, and give contractors 20% off of that. If someone is a whale, (Vegas term) I will work on the price for them. But I have learned long ago that 90% of your problems are from the 10% of customers that have the lowest prices. I try to weed out that 10% from the get go.
 
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#26 ·
So you've never had a question about coatings that you didn't know and couldn't figure out from a TDS? That's pretty impressive, and if true- good on you. But I hope you understand that's an atypical situation. You may be right- maybe all you give a **** about is the robot at the counter smiling back at you when you come in for your paint. And that's fine. If that works for you, I'm no one to tell you any difference.

But I hope you understand that isn't the case for... well... anyone else. People expect more than a smile, and they should.
 
#27 ·
We get excellent service from S/W. If we want specific information not found or not easily found we ask our rep and he tracks it down for us that day. He is johnny on the spot for us.

Sales associates (guys that work the counter) in the stores are not typically good sources of this kind of information no matter which brand we use. I was in a BM store on Saturday and listened to the long time store manager gives some less than correct advice to a HO who came in with some old paint.

In general, the BM stores are better staffed than their S/W counterparts due to their owner-operator status. The owners take more, pardon the word, ownership so tend to know their products pretty well.
 
#28 ·
I'm not trying to say every SW has garbage employees. I'm just saying that, as a company, there's very little quality control for the sales staff as I've personally seen time and again. What you pay for when you go into SW isn't the quality sales staff; that's what the point of this conversation was.
 
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