Why not sell some 'Skill Builder' Beanies to help fund the paint analysis ? I'm sure you'll sell out pretty quick ! I can't wait for the follow up video - well done Skill Builder 👏🏼👏🏼
No I disagree, they’re still fobbing everyone off and hoping it goes away. If they were regretting not dealing with it at the start, they’d be doing something to rectify it now. And by that, I don’t mean a free beanie... 🙄
As a decorator using Dulux for 20 years I appreciate what your doing to expose them. I’ve many similar stories myself with their tricks. My favourite was them specifying salt resistant costal emulsion for a job in Leamington Spa. The reason? It was twice the price of their standard weathershield emulsion 😡 I’m happy to share plenty of other situations with you.
Dulux paint is shit and over priced. The guys in Leamington Spa branch are ok but the product is awful. gloss paints that never go hard. Just a name that used to mean something.
The MD of Dulux was rescued from a snow capped mountain top suffering from hypothermia. Rescue Services said that he could have done with another coat, but added that at Dulux prices even he couldn’t afford it People are warned to take heed of this chilling story.
@@SkillBuilder Please don’t be too harsh on the Managing Director of Dulux, he doesn’t always get it right. For example, when his wife asked to be treated for her birthday she wasn’t asking for another coat of Cuprinol. He will know better for next year though
Hi, I’m not a decorator but do buy paint on occasion, I sent a link to your video to Dulux and asked them to explain. I received what appeared to be a proforma email in return which I pasted to your original video. I always looked at Dulux first when looking for paint as I grew up being told it was a quality product but given their response I have decided to respond with my wallet and won’t be buy Dulux in the future. I will keep an eye out for any future videos from you on this issue and will be interested to see the outcome, hopefully it won’t be a woolly hat 🤓.
Excellent, well done for getting an independent analysis of this. You are discussing a significant consumer issue on a fairly big platform, so this is very professional of you guys. Thanks looking forward to the outcome.
What a joke of a response from Dulux. I'm just massively surprised and glad that you guys are getting paint chemists(!) to get an independent review of trade vs diy dulux paint. This is fantastic.
Well done for sticking to your guns to get this resolved. Small businesses like yours rely on excellent customer service to survive and so should a company the size of Dulux
I used to work for Crown and had a tour of the labs and factory where the paint was produced, and the difference is that your big retailers like B&Q, Homebase, Wickes etc ask the paint suppliers to produce a low cost paint they can sell to the public at a certain price point.. to do this the manufacturer has to reduce the expensive ingredients like titanium and polymers within the paint and bulk it up with fillers like chalk for example, meaning a retail paint is a lower quality to a trade paint thats had higher quantities of these expensive ingredients added. This apparently improves the quality of the finish from coverage, colour, durability etc which you could tell when using the a trade and retail quality paint, the price difference is ridiculous in this case just typical of dulux, their trade centres rely more on the big contracts than your average painter and decorator.
Thanks Dale The interesting thing is that Dulux gives a 15 year warranty on both versions of their paint. If what you say applies to this paint then the are overselling one or underselling the other. If they put another £30.00 worth of expensive stuff in and it doesn't last any longer there is something wrong.
Went into dulux once and they had some brown masking paper for 9 quid a roll priced up on the shelf, at the time they were 3 quid a roll in toolstation. Same roll, same make etc. The place is a notorious rip off and I avoid it like the plague. I go to crown and Johnstones which I still get ripped off at but not as much. Been in the trade 20 years. Spend up to 1000 a month. Great on you guys for nailing dulux to the mast. Avoid avoid avoid!
I’m a painter and decorator and have had similar issues , started using different products, the decorator centres charge more and often can’t get me the paint but yet Homebase can and cheaper
I’ve painted most of my house in dulux trade as I wanted “the best” cost me £100 a room in just paint on average so I feel like a right mug if it’s the same stuff as off the shelf tin 😞 It did paint nice and cover well in my amateur painting opinion.
This is why I subscribed to this channel, helpful building tips as well as questioning how good certain products really are... I use dulux trade all the time on all my jobs but I think I might be able to save a bit of money for myself and the client depending on the results... Thanks a mill Skill Builder
If the chemist's tests show that the two paints are actually different; how about then doing a comparison test? Paint a piece of wall with the two paints; see which is easier to use, gives the best coverage etc. Then leave it over the winter to see if there's a difference in durability.
Be worth doing a few tests, Durability (Throw pea shingle at it), Weathering (Pressure washing and high powered leaf blowers) and also a salt spray test followed by the same tests as before.
I always used Johnstone’s Decorating Centre, but just lately they’ve tried to have my pants down by quoting me more than double the price for the exact same product they supply to Screwfix. I now stick to a local independent or Screwfix.
Well done! Cant wait for the paint analysis. I feel so dirty after visiting Dulux centres. their profit Margin Must be insane. Whist We are "Opening the Can" of worms on DULUX. Their Weathershield gloss goes yellow virtually overnight. in the rebates of windows where not exposed to UV, and even in the tin when it skins over.
Oil based gloss will do that with no U.V light as the alkyd migrates. I don't know why people still use it indoors. The water based Diamond Egshell is much better. Not cheap but I pick it up from Toolstation.
@@SkillBuilder I thought the water based diamond eggshell was for walls like an emulsion? I used to use dulux water based satinwood for woodwork before I got fed up with it. It’s like painting with treacle and unless the background is already pure white you end up having to apply more than 2 coats. I’d be really interested to see you do a vid on comparing oil based with water based across all the brands.
There was a huge fuss about their Satinwood PBW rapidly yellowing back in early 2012. I've still got the emails here asking if the unopened 2.5l can I had was affected. Gave them the batch number which should have been enough but they treated it as a product failing after application and sent a form covering this to be completed. Every time I emailed them pointing out I was just asking if the batch was affected I got the same response and form. They never did answer my question and fortunately the can wasn't affected.
Now that my extension is nearly done and getting it ready to paint and decorate after seeing this I’m going to avoid dulux I really can’t stand robbing bleeders and piss takers so I’ll steer clear of them thanks for the video 👍🏾
Good work. Regardless of the test results I’m sure Trading Standards would be very interested to hear from Dulux as to why a paint that reads exactly the same on the tin but branded ‘trade’ costs several times more at an official Dulux paint shop than it does at B&Q.
dulux are just one of the mega rich companies schemes who rely on the end costumer to pay out extra for a tradesman to do work for them, the rich get richer and the working class suffers
@@girlsdrinkfeck The same in every country... I live in Croatia and Dulux isn't the popular brand here also.. I don't know, but it seems to me that the best choice is the rust-oleum brands (zinsser, blacfriar etc..)... or I'm wrong?
Expensive hat. This is a classic case of the big business flicking away the little guy but unfortunately for them the little guy has a youtube channel. 😃
A few have mentioned the same but get some skill builder merch up. Coming up to winter we could all get a woolly hat👍 id chip in to a go fund me too. I always thought dulux was the best, suppose that’s the reputation they’re now exploiting
I haven't read all the comments to see if anyone else has said the same thing, but thought I would note my experience of this issue. I served my time as a painter in Oz and after a few years decided to get off the tools and worked for ICI Dulux, that tells you how long ago, in their stores. It was known common practice that paint was 'split filled'. After a number of years I left and joined another paint manufacturer working in their factory. I then was involved in making large quantities of paint, 5,000 to 7,000 litre batches, which would then be 'split filled' between the trade and retail cans. The reason is that it costs more to make 2 separate batches with different formulas, so better to make 1 batch and make a bigger profit on 1 range. The only difference is that usually the retail version would be sold at the higher price for a better ROI. So I really don't understand what has happened here with this as even though I have been in the UK for 20 years I still think the paint industry here is backwards. Just my thoughts.
Got a buddy who works in dulux paint factory in Cork... Dulux and dulux trade come off the same line... Even gliddens paint is squeezed out too on the same line
@@jigsey. what about Armstead? If those paints run off the same batch mixes then the information on the tins are incorrect for one of them. Strange 1. Maybe get away with it with matt paint but you’d think let’s just say a solvent based gloss paint they surely aren’t the same. Cheap gloss is always cheap gloss. Who knows 🤷🏻♂️👍🏻
Do not use deluxe decor centres. I bought a 2 1/2 litre of wallpaper coverup £52. In all other places £26, so I took it back, never used my trade card again.
I just decorated a room in the house, been a few yrs and all my original paint was gone off. Got can of Dulux and it was like water, a complete joke, was very unhappy and suddenly your 1st Dulux video popped up in my feed - what a coincidence !! Very interested to see the difference to the trade version for the next room. I was going to go that direction for better coverage or to budget paint as there was no point paying premium price for what I got previously, needed 3 coats and that was an off white over a light beige !
I've been P&D for 12 years, and a project manager and building surveyor for the last 6, I genuinely believe there is a difference between standard Dulux and trade, but agree with most of the comments on here; it is rarely worth the uplift using the trade products. The only time I specify or use Dulux Trade is where time is an issue, ie, I know that for most applications two coats will be more than sufficient and probably can't run the risk of needing a third coat if a client needs to get back on to the site or where really deep colours are needed. FYI, I've been really impressed with Wickes own brand paints (not the conractor ones though!), the opacity and finish is really solid, especially on the int emulsions and the value seems incredible.
Looking forward to the next video on the conclusion of the paint samples. As a Joiner this 19 years I'm always keen to see a new uploaded video from you guys. I'd be interested in some workwear indeed if it was produced. I've been recommending your videos to guys on site and builder merchants here in Northern Ireland. Keep up the great work and videos...
The Boss Thanks mate It is good for us to have more views and subs. It is harder than digging ditches some days but your help will get us there. We are coming over to NI in a few weeks. lockdown permitting.
Thanks, hopefully you folk will get over. Keep us posted sure and maybe some fans over here of Skill Builder could meet up and share stories😁... Take care.
Really loving this guy's looking forward to the outcome. Been paying crazy money for delux trade myself over the past while and would like to know if it's really worth it!
Love what you are doing! Let’s hope other companies start paying attention to, I’m constantly having to argue with suppliers over material costs - I don’t like doing it but it’s the only option to not get ripped off!
For such a large well known global brand AkzoNobel I was a little shocked in the way they dealt with your original video. They should have taken your concerns more seriously and dealt with your query at head office - not passing you back to the decorator centre. They must have people in customer relations/client services being such a huge brand in Europe. I’ve always been told trade paints contain higher quality pigments which offer better opacity than the DIY paints. They must have scientific specialists that formulate these paints in labs. Why didn’t they engage one of those to clearly explain the difference in the formulation of the trade vs. DIY paint. As they didn’t I do wonder if they are virtually identical in formulation. Looking forward to the results.
Thanks Guys for taking up the cause; really appreciate it. I think they have a surplus of beanie hats because I have two!! maybe if they spent less on promotional TAT!! They could knock a bit of the price of paint...keep doing it fellas✊
We mix Berger paint (a Crown brand) and even before the current Covid-19 situation we were having difficulty getting Berger bases to mix paint. No problem getting Crown Trade bases though. These are twice the price of the Berger version and I have been unable to find out the difference. Look forward to the test results.
This is quite normal and understandable even despite it being very annoying. No manufacturer wants to supply to the end user at a price to match or better the price offered by their distribution channel. To do otherwise would see the wholesale desertion of said channel to another supplier.
All the paint trade shops are eye wateringly expensive, Brewers, cane Adams, Dulux. I will no longer use any of them. There are great deals at the DIY stores, as long as you buy their premium paints then no issues. I regularly buy scrubbable mat from B&Q (Valspar) very good product and will mix you Farrow and Ball colours.
I bledy love this. My experience the trade paint is being told by the decorator that I started out with, that I wanted the trade stuff because it is thicker. He then told me he thins it down with a bit of water! Didn't question it at the time because I was but a pup. A couple of years later a customer has a go at me after seeing me thin down the trade paint thinking I was bodging it trying to save money! urrg
Go to your local independent merchant where for pale colours they will tint white free of charge or for a few pounds. Faced with paying £100 for 10 litres of masonry paint in Dulux I got 7.5 litres tinted to Gardenia for £28
Well done guys for pursuing this. As tradesman we loyally use products and are often taken advantage of because we are loyal. The big companies don’t care that it is us small companies that continually buy their products but often treat us unfairly and then just hope we go away when there’s a problem .
Wow thanks Roger & James, i've worked for Dulux and now Crown and it does amaze me that you'd pay £100 plus quid for a 10ltr; i nearly fell off my chair when i heard this.. Yes Trade is better there's no doubting this as i used to be a P&D myself and i always stipulated the use of Trade although the clients used to buy their own to my dismay but always ended up putting additional coats to get the full coverage whereas with Trade I'd get a uniform finish after 2 coats. Even so there's absolutely no reason why Trade has to be nearly three times the cost and I'd very very surprised if our Sandtex Retail would be three times less than Sandtex Trade.. Suppose someone's got to pay for the dog food though as Sheepdogs do eat alot of food!! I'd be very interested in the final independent test you're undertaking. Well done again and great video..
So many trade places are more expensive than the sheds or Toolstation for stuff, trade prices used to mean sold at below what a punter off the street could buy stuff, so we had a bit of cash back,now it seems as if theyre more expensive, look at b and q trade where you have to spend thousands per month to get 5% plus off a month, at least wickes offer 10% off everything all the time for us in the trades. Oh and great easy to watch videos, done by people who actually do the job every day.
Same happens in some of the well known builders merchants, there are two prices, one the shelf price for gullible customers and the real price that can only be accessed on the computer, ask for the discount price and you'll find it's up to a quarter of the shelf price which means they were fully prepared to rob you blind unless you asked.
I'm not in the trade, so happy to name and shame: Gibbs and Dandy (owned by Saint Gobain, same as Jewson's). Fortunately Screwfix have opened directly opposite. I thought they might change their prices to compete. Now they have an empty carpark and Screwfix is full of trades people.
It would be interesting to hear what the Pros think is good paint,,, before i starting doing my decorating , I`ve always liked Wickes brand but not much colour choice.
I know there is a difference for a fact, but a lot of people in here commenting won't hear it. Used to work in a paint development lab and we'd always be assessing the performance of rival companies to produce a superior product and trade paints do general have higher opacity. Thickness is a trick that can be artificially increased for very low cost and is not a measure of paint quality, but customers perceive it as one.
The neck of them to give you a free hat & expect you to advertise there brand. Are they stupid or do they think people are stupid? Well done lads for taking it a step further & getting the paint tested.
I experienced exactly the same situation as this - I bought 80l of Dulux Weathershield Smooth Masonry paint from B&Q. Using my TradePoint account it came in at under £40 per 10l. Happy days. Only I then needed another 20l and B&Q had sold out in all the local stores. I popped into the Dulux Trade Centre and when I saw their prices I bounced out on my arse, laughing all the way! I only wanted magnolia, straight off the shelf at £100 quid a pop! Luckily, on another run to B&Q I happened upon two 10l of the magnolia that had slipped through their online stock check. I’m looking forward to the results of the chemical analysis..🤔
Funny but this dulux trade thing is something that's been going round in my head on and off for some years now. I've been told by a few people, and someone who purport to have worked at dulux that the 'trade' paint that you buy from the trade places like Brewers and the Dulux centres is different from the diy stores. They seem to be quite adamant about it. Good to see that you're investigating it as these big corporations are always looking to rip you off one way or another. Be interesting to see the results. Going off on a tangent, my son was looking for an electric mower a couple of years ago and he settled on a Bosch. What he couldn't understand was the diy stores stocked what looked like the same model but the suffix letters were different at different stores.. He found out by talking to a Bosch rep who happened to be in one of the stores at the time that it's to avoid price matching, so if you went into one store and said you'd seen it cheaper elsewhere, they'd get out of it by saying it's not the same mode! These people are bloody shysters.
I have noticed Currys seem to do this on TV's and stuff, trying to search for the same model to find the difference in price returns nothing but from Currys. I very much doubt curry has a dedicated model
@@Jules_Pew I'm not sure that they're breaking any laws. I think, if true, the paint would be formulated to be suited to either a pro or diy'er. I've read that the opacity of trade paints is better because it requires less coats but then why would you call a retail paint, trade? Nothing's straight forward is it
Went into homebase the other day to get some paint, even the woman who works on the paint mixing counter was dismissive of the Dulux trade paint. I can imagine she probably had a bunch of people go to buy some and then be shocked to find out its like £90 a tub.
Great you are getting an independent test. What do you think the chances are Dulux will finish the result or give accurate detail differences before your result.
I think the test results will show that the Trade formula has much more pigment in it than the retail version. This gives the trade paint more opacity. More ability to cover and give a solid looking finish in less coats. Very important if your making a colour change or if you have had to do a lot of repair work to do beforehand. I'm surprised Dulux haven't explained this to you unless they really are using the same formula for both paints and ripping us off. I've been a professional decorator for 34yrs and have run my own business for 29yrs. I only use trade paint. Say for example you had the exterior walls of a sizeable property to paint, the normal finishing process would be 2 coats of masonry paint. If you use the retail paint it could take 3 coats to cover. The trade paint would be more likely to cover in 2 coats. It may take a day or two longer to do the 3rd coat with the retail paint. The labour cost to do that 3rd coat is going to be far higher than paying the extra money for the trade paint in the first place. If you have given the customer a quote to do the work and specified that you will do 2 coats then you can end up in a tricky situation. Do you ask the customer to pay more for the job because you have used retail paint or absorb the cost yourself?
The utter stupidity of some brands amaze me , all they needed to do was refund the difference and state that they are slightly different (we know they are not), job done but for 3 tubs of paint they are now in a world of pain. Good on you roger maybe just maybe they will be embarrassed enough to sort out their pricing for the future.
Are you a city in Georgia or Illinois (USA)? "Decatur". You spoiling is appealing. Don't panic. Not trolling. I myself suffer from piss-pronunciation. See Ronnie Barker. ;-) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aJ0nFQgRApY.html
This next vid I'm looking forward to. Ive had an account at DDC for at least 30 yrs and they pissed me off in 2008 with price increases in a recession. Well thank you for your customer support, like not. Since the Akzo Noble take over it just gets worse. Recently got a trade card for Selco, 1400 double roll Erfurt lining paper 3 quid a roll cheaper than ddc. The Dulux stuff in there paintwise is still a bit more than ddc but not by much.
Large Homebase branches have a Dulux stand where they'll mix any kind of interior or exterior paint in more or less any colour. I think I paid just under £40 for a 2.5 litre tin.
This is great. Dulux Trade stiffed me on some paint last week. I was so angry with myself. Bought a £8.00 tin of paint from Wilko to freshen my daughters bedroom. Nothing wrong with it but needed a second coat. Rather then go back to Wilko thought I'd nip across the road where they have a Dulux trade center. Sure enough they had a matching pink but said they had to mix it. Never asked price, thought well trade..must be competitive as all decorators must go. Lady starts trying to sell me special offers on paint brushes etc. Paint ready and go to pay....just over £30.00 !! I was gobsmacked. I realised later that all these special offers where a distraction from asking price. Never ever again.
I’m a now retired painting contractor in east anglia, and used to use all the major brands. The price difference between on the shelf and the actual trade customer was huge (depending on the size of your account). Occasionally we would see uc, gloss and emulsions cheaper in the DIY stores than even our discounted price, and that’s going back 15/20 years ago, and when we complained to the rep we was always told it’s cheaper because it’s a cheaper formula. Historically Dulux was always the premium brand and we always showed a separate price for private clients against a std trade range, but regardless we would always recommend the Dulux weather shield range for external work, from experience it would last longer and retain its colour. As part of the marketing of all the paint manufacturers we was always invited to the factories for lunch and to look at the manufacturing process, but never looking into the mixing vessels or seeing the formulating we was always told that the make up of the paint itself was different between the “trade brand ” and the “retail brand”, it’ll be interesting to see the chemical composition of the two. Finally Dulux used to have excellent field specifiers and in-house technical knowledge, as and when we had problems it was always sorted amicably, this all started to slip a few years ago, and I know from personal experience the trade depots have had changes imposed onto them centrally.
Had a big problem with there mixed paint and the customer service in the Redditch branch understanding that mixed paint from there centres are so way of what you get from diy stores regardless of prepping the walls base coat lighting aspect etc
Bloody cheek of Dulux to ask a dissatisfied customer to wear a beanie advertising their brand. You DO realize it is also the most expensive beanie in the world since it cost you the best part of £200 :) . . Looking forward to the results of the test. Good on you for persevering with this :)
I also got the trade paint 2L and 1L and it cost me over £80, instead of less than £45. I also want to know the results of the test. I want to know if I was ripped off or not.
Well in my opinion it’s case closed!! A masonry paint that lasts 20yrs longer and a Trade beanie?? What else do you want for the additional £200 price tag 🤷🏼♂️ 🤨 can’t please some people 😂
Great work chaps on properly investigating the truth. I’ve been using Dulux for 15 years and have found there is a wide range of quality in the retail paints. Everything from so called “quick dry, one coat” paints that aren’t worth the scrap metal for the tin to the exterior Masonry products which I, like you, I can find no discernible difference between trade and retail and its very frustrating when the prices are serious money for many of the trade ranges.
Let me guess - the products will be very similar but their performance identical. This will be marketing engineering and it will be more to do with printing “Trade Only” on the containers rather than putting anything extra in the product other than bollocks. And would a better product make a difference? My own unfortunate experience of many tradesmen is that in order of finish is goes student house bodger, tradesman, guide dog, registered blind, piss poor amateur, average DIY’er up to competent amateur. The products they use also appear to follow the finish pattern. I’m fully prepared to pay the going rate and I expect a professional to do a better, more competent job than I can. Too often this is not the case. Don’t believe me? See where the trade buy, like Travis Perkins. The country desperately needs the likes of Roger, Robin et al if we are ever to have a quality building industry.
Good work fellas. As a competent DIYer I use a lot of paint and I find the prices just random. Sometimes you can score good paint for cheap in the big boxes other times they want insane money at the trade centers. (Crown/leyland/dulux) Looking forward to the result but a scientist I can tell you the difference between them is Kingfisher (B&Q) have a professional purchasing person buying millions of pounds of paint. That carries a lot of weight and discount. You buy a tiny bit of paint (relatively) and direct from Dulux where they rely on 25 years of loyal customers. They will screw you for every penny they can get. No reward for volume, no loyal customer discount. A free shitty coffee is not enough in 2020 to justify loyalty they have to do more to support your customers (the painters) who need a margin to make a living.
After 26 years in business I'm baffled why Lloyds bank haven't given me a Lloyds tie, seeing as I've been working for them instead of myself all this time. Maybe I'll hold out for a Lloyds beanie 🤔
They're definitely different formulations. If you look on the original video you'll notice that the VOC levels stated on the labels are different. The trade version is also BBA approved whilst the DIY version isn't It is difficult to see how differences in formulation could justify a 3 x difference in price. However, it is likely that the trade version contains more expensive titanium dioxide as a whitening agent, giving the paint better covering power. The DIY version is likely to use more calcium carbonate (chalk) instead. As the trade version has BBA approval, Dulux will have to stick to the original formula that was tested by the BBA. With the non-BBA DIY version, Dulux are free to change the formulation from time to time to take advantage of changing prices of raw materials. The burden of proof on the 15 year claim is much higher on the BBA version as the testing is independent rather than in-house, so the trade version will have had to have been formulated to pass the tougher BBA tests. I suspect Dulux's reluctance to engage is because they don't want to admit that the DIY version isn't as good as the trade version. It will be value engineered to sell at a low price point demanded by B&Q etc... Such a tactic won't work with trade customers who will notice any decline in quality as they use paint every day. It will be interesting to see what the test results show.
Always communicate up front with your customer, the cost, or the budget to clearly quote the job or product. Every sales person should adhere to this rule.
