Sherwin

Hello Ware-Ever, That is a great idea! The discounts should come from suppliers of equipment, supplies, Insurance, etc.... The NPCA should try to get discounts for everything possible for their members kind of like AAA auto club. You can get discounts everywhere if you are a member. I know that there might be a lot more members in AAA but the NPCA should start like them and who knows what will happen? An example is the PWNA for Pressure Washers. If you are a member you can get lower Business Insurance, discounts from the major Pressure Washing Suppliers for Equipment, Chemicals, supplies, etc... You get a discount at the Conventions, Seminars, Classes, etc... If the NPCA were to do this, I bet their membership would grow a lot faster. From what I have seen in the phone books of larger cities, there are a lot more Paint Stripers and Paving companies than pressure washers. I think that once the word got out about discounts for your supplies by being a member of the NPCA, I bet a lot more companies would sign up and that would help the industry and raise the level of professionalism, knowledge, and everyone would benefit one way or another. I bet the NPCA could get a good discount from a major paint supplier if they could say that they could increase their sales by giving all members the same discount and a good deal on the shipping since a lot of the members are not in that area so everyone could purchase the paint and save some money. Depending on how much you use per year, what you save in the discounts could pay for your membership and possibly more. If this were to happen I would think that more paint companies would also like to get on board and then the "Your quality is just not there" speech could be given and maybe they would listen when hundreds or thousands of members from all around the country start using another brand or just stay away from their brand for a while. Just some thoughts from a newbie.

Chris - My sentiments exactly!

My vote too

A few posts back, there is, a poll showing what brand of paint striper's are using. S&W is used by 83% of striper's. Many of us use there products because we don't have a choice. High pricing,fogging,dirty,difficulty spraying paint's, terrible sales staff,managers,rep's etc are some of the complaint's that I have read on PLP. They,S&W, really don't care about us. Every striper that does leave them ,another1 will replace them. A good point was brought up about not knowing any long line guy's that use S&W. Years ago S&W quit making traffic paint because it was not profitable (in my area). I was speaking with an owner of a paint manufacturing company (that does not exsist anymore) and he told me the profit on traffic paint is very thin. Why sell millions of gallons to make a small percentage,when you could sell smaller quantaties at larger prices. Target Market

Lots of folks, like me, are happy with SW. I buy other brands of paint also, but you can't beat the service and having stores all over the place where you can pick up paint. I think a lot of problems contractors have is that their local reps and store employees don't take care of business like they should. SW has a couple of outside sales reps that help me a lot, and my "home store" has a couple of good guys. Any store can pull up my account and see the list of prices to charge, if they didn't do that, they would try to charge $25 / gallon for their paint.

Picked up a 5 at sw about 2 weeks ago and its now over $15 per gallon. I have been using franklin paint since mid season last year and have no problems with this paint its definitely thicker never any trash to worry about and covers better than sw. At around 9 bucks for latex and 10 for cr that's saving big money. Plus you guys up here in the northeast can get it next day with free shipping if you buy 100 gallons or more.

kris wrote on Dec 8, 2005:Go to #46

Picked up a 5 at sw about 2 weeks ago and its now over $15 per gallon. I have been using franklin paint since mid season last year and have no problems with this paint its definitely thicker never any trash to worry about and covers better than sw. At around 9 bucks for latex and 10 for cr that's saving big money. Plus you guys up here in the northeast can get it next day with free shipping if you buy 100 gallons or more.

Its not free shipping, its built into your price. If you pick it up its even cheaper. Jim