Bradite moves into top gear
Specialist coatings manufacturer Bradite has seen a positive start to 2023 and is looking forward to the year ahead.
“Getting a big player to add our products to their core range has been a big win for us,” says Operations Director, Ben Mottershead.
The “big player” is Dulux Decorator Centre; the UK’s largest network of decorators’ merchants with 233 stores nationwide. The Bradite products added to its core off-the-shelf and online range are One Can and Floor-it.
“Engaging with our customers as part of our Specialist paints range review showed that there was a clear desire for quick drying time saving solutions”, says Sarah Atkins Head of DDC Commercial. “Bradite One Can & Floor-It meets the needs our customers through water based multi surface solutions in a wide range of colours“.
Beyond The Tipping Point
The coatings marketplace features a range of well-known products that have been around for quite a while. “It’s taken us a while to get to a tipping point, to get a following,” says Ben. “Our long-time partnership with our existing merchant customers has proved invaluable in establishing the credentials of One Can and continues to do so“.
Now, some five years on from the launch of One Can, that following among professional painters and decorators has grown as the product’s qualities have become appreciated.
Its use as a primer, undercoat and finish all in one, its low-odour, quick drying nature and its
ability to adhere to almost any substrate might have been greeted with professional scepticism originally, but now it has more than proved itself.
Merchants have been getting more and more requests for both One Can and Floor-it and whereas previously they would order a few cans for a specific customer they have now realised that it makes sense to have them available on the shelf.
Advice and Training
Stocking the product goes hand in hand with advice concerning its use. This involves point of sale technical information and staff training at the merchants but explains, Ben, “There’s more and more engagement on social media which has been developed over the last year or so.”
Bradite now has an Instagram presence that is used to showcase before and after transformations and provide details of the product range. The company also runs competitions regularly on both Instagram and Twitter. They have also collaborated with the Facebook Forum, Brush Wizards with giveaway samples of One Can for members to review and provide feedback.
P&D Show – the place to be
The importance of feedback from professional users is a key component of the company’s long-term support for the P&D Show. Ben says: “It’s certainly the best show for dealing with the trade. There’s no doubt about that. Whether it’s one- or two-men decorating teams or big corporate firms, or students, I don’t think you get access to those demographics at any other show.”
“People are coming, and they are wanting to have conversations.
It’s a great platform for manufacturers to ask questions of users “and they will give you some real honest feedback and what the marketplace is like. It’s an informed clientele.”
Now that the UK has entered the post-Covid environment, the outlook for Bradite is positive. Although the British Coating Federation indicated that January’s figures of activity showed a 12% reduction in the market overall from the previous year Bradite was holding steady with the wider availability of its key products.
“One Can and Floor-it have different attributes, but we sell them into the same type of decorator through Dulux Decorator Centre,” says Ben. “Both products are advanced water-based systems.” Floor-it, for example, could be used in warehouse or general shopfloor situations where its single pack, quick drying and robust characteristics would ensure that customers could finish a refurb job and be back in full operation in double quick time.
Meeting the demand
Another key decision by Bradite has been to slim down dramatically the product range while greatly enhancing the quality of the products that remain. “A few years ago we had a product list of 50, now we’ve cut it down to six or seven,” says Ben. “We’ve retained products that perform very, very highly. The products are not about cheap and cheerful. It’s about working out what the customer needs and giving them a specific, highly developed, highly engineered product that works.”
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