Paint supplier EdgeChem has opened its 25th store in Portmore, St Catherine, bringing its retail business closer to residents living in the rapidly developing city.

The company has secured a 1,700-square foot location at 16 West Trade Way, from which it plans to serve both driving and pedestrian retail customers seeking paint and paint-related products for automotive refinishing, furniture, industrial and decorative finishes.

EdgeChem has been quietly operating business at the new location since January but is planning to lure both existing and new customers to the store on Saturday for its official launch.

“Consumers’ shopping patterns are changing. Because of the traffic, bad road network and just the time it takes, a customer is no longer prepared to drive from one parish to another just to buy paint. It’s costly, and there’s also the risk that the customer may encounter a competitor along the way, potentially resulting in a lost sale,” founder and managing director of the company Doreen Frankson told the Jamaica Observer, in explaining the company’s decision to open a retail store in Portmore.

Prior to its opening, consumers from Portmore would have to travel to EdgeChem’s Brunswick Avenue location in Spanish Town, or to its head office on Carifta Avenue, Off Spanish Town Road in St Andrew to make purchases. But with a growing list of clients coming out of Portmore, Frankson said it was a no-brainer that EdgeChem set up shop in the city.

Additionally, there’s new business for the company to tap into, given the rapid development of the city which got started as a planned residential community in the 1960s to alleviate housing congestion in Kingston.

Since then, Portmore has experienced significant population growth and urban development. It’s now one of the largest cities in Jamaica, known for its residential areas, commercial centres and cultural diversity.

Also known as “the Sunshine City”, Portmore is set to become the 15th parish in Jamaica, a status that highlights the city’s economic significance, population size, and infrastructural development. Advocates for Portmore’s parish status argue that it has outgrown its original purpose as a residential area and has developed into a fully-fledged city with its own unique needs and challenges and that being designated as a parish would afford Portmore greater control over its local affairs, including planning, development, and resource allocation.

“Portmore is changing from a dormitory community. Residents of the city would work in Kingston, shop in Kingston and then go home. But the city is expanding, and business owners are now taking the service to the people,” Frankson said.

The new store is one of the largest within EdgeChem’s islandwide retail network and will be stocked with the products the company manufactures across all four markets — automotive, furniture, decorative and industrial finishes. Additionally, EdgeChem Portmore will offer automotive and decorative colour-mixing services at the new store for its Automel, ASX basecoat and Edgespirit decorative systems.

The store will also carry a wide variety of paint-related products including Sikkens automotive products and accessories for paint projects.

“The location was chosen because of security features. It also has ample parking space for customers particularly our automotive customers who may need the vehicle to be on spot for colour-matching purposes as well as those buying a couple of gallons of paint. Also, the plaza already had good traffic from the existing business operations,” Frankson said.

EdgeChem has hired five members of staff for the new store, bringing the company’s total employment north of 300 people. Those staff members are being supported by technical sales representatives who are tasked with bringing new clients to the Portmore store daily.

“They visit garages, building sites, and so on. So they develop relations with potential clients in Portmore and are able to offer them good technical advice,” Frankson said.

“How we go about winning business is not any different from the other locations that we have, but of course, it’s a different clientele. Portmore has a lot of automotive and decorative retail customers, but in other locations, our clientele may be more on the industrial side,” she added.

Over time, the company may seek to add a door-to-door delivery service option for the Portmore branch, but that’s based on market receptivity.

“We have been offering delivery service to some extent, but it’s mostly to our tradesmen more so than to households. Somebody buying paint for the house may want to look at the chart, they don’t want to order online,” the MD, who founded the company in 1991, said.

“Additionally, our automotive customers have to come to the location because each vehicle comes a with specific colour code, but sometimes we also have to do a bit of eye-matching because the vehicles may be painted over. So it’s not so easy in our business to deliver, but there are some things that we can deliver” she explained.

Trails market leader

At 25 locations, Frankson says EdgeChem now trails the market leader in network touchpoints.

She declined to detail first-year revenue projections from the Portmore store, citing competitive reasons, but added that the “projections have been surpassed over the years and we expect no different for this store”. Overall, EdgeChem currently does just over $2 billion in annual sales.

Another store opening is planned for June, but Frankson also declined to disclose the location.

“What I can say is that the upcoming store will likely be our last retail store. I think with that store opening we will have sufficiently covered the entire island,” she said.

Globally, the paints and coatings market is projected to grow from US$190 billion to US$223 billion by 2027. Some 60 per cent of that will come from the industrial paint business which spans a wide range of industries like automotive, marine, packaging, powder and protection, while the remaining 40 per cent will come from sales in the decorative paint category.

A read on the performance of the local paint market was not immediately available, but Frankson said that the market is still in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During COVID-19 sales were up because lots of renovations were happening in the household and in the business places. Our business is seasonal and so now we are in a slow period, but aside from that we are still trying to catch up to our 2019 numbers,” she said.

Frankson boasts about EdgeChem’s adaptability to changing market trends while underscoring that the company’s dedication to surpassing consumer expectations is the competitive edge it has over rivals.

For example, decorating and paint trends for 2024 are split into two camps — going bold and bright, or keeping things neutral. Regardless of the direction consumers want to take, Frankson says that the company continues to invest in research and development to meet consumers’ expectations.

There are also global conversations around greener paints, but Frankson said that Jamaica may be slow to adopt the green standard.

“The high interest rates have affected small business people and retail customers. If people have to make a choice between food and renovating their homes or repairing their car, it’s going to be food,” Frankson said.