1. The dealership and what it requires
Paint companies appoint dealers with a deposit, a minimum monthly offtake and often a requirement to display and stock a defined range. Terms vary and the schemes on top of the base margin usually matter more than the margin itself. As with cement, get the scheme structure and the territory position in writing before signing, because those are what determine whether the arrangement is worth the capital.
2. The tinting machine question
A tinting machine lets you make thousands of shades from a small number of bases, which transforms your stock position — you hold bases instead of hundreds of ready-mixed shades. It is a significant investment and usually comes with company conditions attached. For a shop serving a market that asks for specific shades it pays for itself; for a counter selling mostly standard whites and basic colours it may not. Work it out on your expected shade mix rather than on the demonstration.
3. Pack sizes and shades are separate items
The same paint in one, four, ten and twenty litre packs sells at different rates per litre, and shades within a range are different products. Entering them generically makes stock meaningless in exactly the category where a customer asks for one specific thing. If you run a tinting machine, remember that the base is your stock and the shade card is not — recording it that way keeps the figure honest.
4. Painter credit and the job cycle
Your regular customer is a painter drawing material through a job and settling when the owner pays him. Small amounts, many visits, several weeks. That is exactly the pattern that grows unnoticed, so set a limit at the start, watch the ageing, and send a statement at the end of each month while the job is fresh in both memories. Painters also bring you customers, so the relationship is worth more than the individual account.
5. Season, festivals and dead shades
Paint sells hardest before festivals and through the finishing season, and shade preferences shift year to year. Order from movement over the same months last year rather than from the last few weeks, and use the same report to find shades that have not moved at all. Ready-mixed stock in an unpopular shade is among the least recoverable capital in retail, so find it while it is still current.
6. What to stock first
Start with the ranges and pack sizes your local market actually buys — usually exterior and interior emulsions in mid price points, primer, putty and the basic enamel range — plus brushes, rollers, tape and the sundries painters buy every day. Those sundries are worth more than they look: they bring painters in weekly, and the painter decides where the paint is bought.