VIVACIOUS COLOUR EXPERIENCE

Paint manufacturers reach to consumers directly as products become plenty with multi features and competition grow fierce.

The need

Today’s consumer is a well educated and well travelled being. Internationally, it has been understood that experience is what creates a consumer forever. The paint retail scenario in India has been a more of B2B one wherein the middle man or the contractor goes buys the product by merely suggesting the consumer what would look good.

“Paint retail environment in India is messy and a shop is reflective of the B2B ambience. Experience centres offer a tremendous opportunity to provide the Indian consumers a world-class shopping against a regular shop where there is a limitation of colour selection through usage of conventional tools and the shopper also does not go beyond the dealer counter. Also, consumers need to be made aware of the different products offered and their benefits. With Dulux Decorator Centre, we aim at establishing such experience centres for consumers, where consumers can get a first-hand ‘touch and feel’ experience of the paint finish, get expert help on colours and brands through trained company resources or a colour professional, and simultaneously are made aware of the latest global colour tools and trends. This also helps consumers make an informed choice about the products available for home décor,” says Amit Arora, Business Manager, Decorative Paints, Akzo Nobel India.

“Nerolac introduced Impressions Style Zone (ISZ) around 4 years ago, a franchisee-based retail model that provides unique paint buying experience for the Indian Family. Research indicated that although painting is a high involvement category for consumers, the involvement in paint buying is extremely low due to the unwelcoming ambience at the paint stores. Hence, this concept was launched to engage the consumers with the paint buying process where families could come to understand paints, colours, new trends, etc,” says Sukhpreet Singh, General Manager, Marketing & Sales, Kansai Nerolac Paints Limited.

Experience centres can actually justify below products

Akzo Nobel India

#   Dulux Guardian is an anti-bacterial and environment friendly paint, launched with a view to create healthy living conditions at home. Dulux Guardian also has low odour and low VOC, making it extremely safe for the user, consumers and the environment.

#   Dulux VelvetTouch Trends is simply Fashion for Walls. With Velvet Touch as base coat, Velvet Touch Trends is a ready to use paint. Is developed by some leading fashion experts from the industry.

Jotun Paints

#   Jotashield Extreme offers revolutionary 2X Heat Reflective feature. This means that it can reflect up to twice the amount of heat away from your walls when compared to standard paints, thus reducing the temperature level while increasing your comfort level. The company claims that It drops temperature by 5 degrees.

#   Fenomastic Stain Resistant: This waterborne emulsion is perfect for those high-traffic areas in a home. It allows removing stains easily without damaging the paint.

#   Fenomastic Hygiene:  Prevents the growth and spread of many different kinds of bacteria and fungi. It’s also ideal for kitchens and bathrooms due to its unique High Crack Tolerance (HTC) formula, low flamespread and long lasting colours.

Going strong with expansion under focus

The companies are now striving to enter this kind of format as this is where the future lies, wherein they can offer exclusive products and services to consumers.  “It has become imperative to have such stores because the various kinds of products they are selling require special or standalone stores to get every product rightly to the end consumers,” says Percy Jijina, Sales Director – Decorative, Jotun India. She further adds, “Paint is chemicals which an end user needs to know and understand about. At Jotun’s experience centres a consumer can touch and feel and understand the product and its quality that he/she is buying. Moreover, it’s about personalising the choice of the consumers and also engaging them into the product which is of their importance.”

“The Dulux Decorator Centre provides benefits to other stakeholders as well. For instance, the DDC becomes a hub for upgrading of skills of core group of painting contractors, which is essential, since they provide the delivery of painting experience to consumers,” says Arora. Moreover, “an experience centre offers a different experience from a normal paint dealer. The centre is a complete one stop shop that fulfills all painting related needs of consumers. It provides a spacious and well-lit shopping environment, complete with state-of-the-art colour tools such as Margherita Display and colour visualisation software. The centre also has trained Dulux Experts or colour consultants who assist consumers in colour consultancy, and product selection, keeping in mind the need and choices of consumers. The colour consultants also help the consumers in getting the right contractor to get their home painted,” he adds.

For Nerolac, “The store itself keeps the customers engaged. Each element in the store adds to the overall buying experience. The 3-D visualiser helps to create dream house and paint it in seconds. The range of 60 ‘Touch and Feel’ panels help in understanding various finishes. The wide range of colour tools helps in shade and colour selection. The colour wheel helps in colour combinations. The different products on display help the consumers in choosing the right product for the right substrate. The end to end solution is unique in the Indian paint industry. This is supplemented by a calendar of events like painting competitions and sessions with Interior designer s and architects,” informs Singh.

The brands are looking forward to initially cater to the markets that are high on incomes and are prominent in terms of growing property. The target regions for Akzonobel is towns which have high per capita consumption such as Delhi, Mumbai, Surat, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Calcutta, etc while Jotun with its brigade of 330 dealers of which 70% are experience centres now looks at penetrating further into markets in the South and West India along with Northern region. “We are present in nine states including Maharashtra, Delhi/NCR, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and states down south. We want to grow stronger in these areas itself and look to other places later. We plan to add 50-60 stores in a year of which most would be experience centre,” adds Jijina. Nerolac has 29 ISZs spread across Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.