Paint Mixing Business Plan

Paint Mixing Business Plan

Paint Mixing Business Plan Overview

This Paint Mixing Business Plan focuses on the business of producing paint manually and in small scale by mixing different basic colors to produce a variety of tints or shades. This as opposed to formal commercial manufacturers who produce ‘original pigments do it more professionally, in large scale, brand and market aggressively. The informal production is an alternative to the formal producers in terms of color varieties available and at times prices.

The business , which is not unique to Kenya, has existed for over 30 years and was born out of the difficulties of getting exactly the right color ( tint, or shade) of paint for vehicles which needed repainting due to scratches, accidents, aesthetics or whatever reason. This still remains the main reason the business still exists to date. Other reasons include the search for cheaper alternatives by vehicle owners bitten by inflation and high costs.

However over the last couple of years the business has expanded such vehicles are not the only focus, any industry which requires painting is now a potential customer. This includes real estate and even furniture. The shift is not just a result of competition in the vehicle paints business but also the expansion of the other sectors. With all the construction going on at all levels there were bound to be consumers looking for less costly alternatives or very particular kind of colors. Compared to the vehicle market the real estate is yet to welcome the mixed paints in a big way.

The relationship between the paint mixers and the big paint manufactures has been more complimentary than outright rivalry. The mixers purchase their main raw materials from the big paint companies, who sell to them knowing they are helping reach a market they would otherwise have not. See because of the hundreds of vehicle color tints and the technology that existed before it was not commercially viable for the manufacturers to produce each of them. And it’s that gap that the mixers filled and still fill: they are able to mix just enough paint for one car. Small scale paint mixers also recycle and use tins originally used by the big manufacturers.

With new technology the big companies are now getting into mixing and selling custom colors in smaller quantities with the big focus being on the real estate sector, and to a lesser extent the vehicle industry. This has not threatened the informal paint mixers, at least in the short run. The mixers have the advantage distribution, location (very near garages, which makes them easily accessible), relationships with vehicle sprayers and mechanics and better prices.

The biggest difference between the computerized painting mixing systems used by the big companies and the manual mixing used by the informal paint mixers is that the former uses technology to identify tints then decide which are the ‘raw’ colors to mix in order to get that exact tint. The informal paint mixers more often than not use the naked eye to match the colors from a color chart then decide what to mix, the naked eye often has limitations and there are cases where the match is not exact.

Another difference has to be with the quality of the paint. At the very least quality is affected by ratios, storage and work environment and thus cleanliness of the paint and purity. Because of using manual methods to mix the paint sometimes there is no consistency; paint could be of an extremely good quality today and the next day of quite a poor quality. A computerized machine is able to maintain the same standards day in day out.

Despite these setbacks the manual paint mixing business still thrives for reasons stated above and on the strength of a large and expanding pool of customers and experience. The paint mixing business has not changed much over the years. The process is still very manual, and there is little adaptation of technology. Partially it’s a case of old habits dying hard, capital limitations, and if it works why fix it? Attitude. This will become clear in subsequent sections.

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