lling paint

the psychology of selling, and teach product advantages, we also teach which paint is the best for a given application. Lumber dealers have the advantage of suggesting paint to a customer who is still several steps away from the painting phase of his project.

The Better Homes and, Gardens NPVLA survey indicated that 46 per cent of all paint buyers are repeat business. It also indicated that 3l per cent of all paint buyers surveyed were switching brands and that a startling lB per cent couldn't remember the brand they had used for their last painting job.

So you can deduce quite easily that it pays to sell a nationally known paint, one with national advertising behind it.. Two out of three potential paint buyers indicated they prefer to bny established brands. Also important in establishing a reputation as a knowledgeable paint seller is the use of steady local advertising. By using advertising mats and direct mail leaflets prepared by the paint company and by using small ads scattered through your local paper, you can build recognition as a paint supplier. Local radio ads as well as national print and televi. sion advertising also can help establish a paint's reputation. Bargain hunters may buy little-known offbrand paints, but surveys show that these paints inspire few repeat buyers.

In choosing a paint to sell, a brand with a wide selection of color availability is important, for color rather than maintenance usually mean fast motivates people to paint. Housewives _ and even husbands _ get bored with a color long before the paint deteriorates in appearance or performance. The Better Homes and Cardens survey indicated that 62 per cent of all paint buyers changed interior color scheme when repainting. This is one reason Pittsburgh Paints developed its new 720-color Custom Color Collection. With a minimum of bases and colorants. a dealer using this system can create a color for a customer that will be individual enough so she won't see it in the living rooms of all her friends. This is an important selling point. lf a paint department is small, sparsely stocked or stocked with unfamiliar brand names. or if it is tucked in a corner or badly arranged, chances are it won't make a second saleif, indeed, it makes the first one. And if a store is out of an item, the customer usually goes to another store to buv it.

Too many color systems have well over a thousand colors available - this is really overkill, for the many marginally different variations make color selection a difficult and confusing job for the customer. PPG purposely limited its Custom Color Collection to 720 carefully selected tones, a number that can be displayed efficiently. These colors are the most modern possible, for the system is updated periodically. Obsolescent colors are discarded, and replaced with newer ones.

Though your lumber customers are usually men, appealing to women customers pays off in increased sales. Men buy the lumber for expansions and improvements, but women instigate many such projects -and they choose the colors with which to finish them. Women, too, do much more actual' painting than would be expected. In 62 per cent of all interior painting projects, women either assist or do all the work.

What paint purchaslrs want to see is a fairly large paint department, fully stocked, neatly and stylishly arranged. They like to see colors attractively displayed. Studies indicate that any paint dealer should devote at least 8 to l0 per cent of his sales area to paints if customers are to be impressed that the dealer is one from whom he can buy paint with (Couinu,eil on Page 13)