Hi all,
The Wattyl products have disappeared off the shelves over the last few years and some time back it was sold off to Valspar an American company.

Valspar is now opening its showroom in brookvale in the old Wattyl building.

Now many might see this as a bad thing ,but I see it as a great thing , Because there might now just be a chance to get some great furniture finishing products again in this country!
The yanks have it all ! We have nothing available in oz apart from very basic stains and finishes.

There use to be lots here ,but as the french polish industry died off here years ago , The products went with it.
The best supplies were from Stimsons at Balmain and about 8 years ago they closed their doors for the last time.
Leaving no options !
To give you and example of this problem , A while back I went out to buy a Golden oak in pigment stain ! A very common stain ! No one sold it anymore ! In a dye yes!
But not in pigment. Because the industries that made these stain are now all gone ! Dead ! Broke !
So this has left us with only a few products available to Australians .
The yanks on the other hand, have the best stuff and an enormous amounts of products to choose from so this maybe a great thing for people wanting to restore Radio and Televisions cabinets.
Living in oz really can be like an isolated Island. When it comes to buying anything ! Not just furniture stains.
Im forever bringing things into this country that can't be bought here , from tools to shoes!
I make my own stains and mostly Glazers, but I still buy other stains and products as well.


Note their name Valspar?
Spar is Varnish! Spar Vanish ,like we use on vintage boats and antiques

All the best , Pete

Sadly, it is the retail sector spoiling things. Bunnings is the major hardware chain in Australia but they are just a cog in a larger wheel known as Wesfarmers Ltd. They own Bunnings, Coles, Officeworks, Liquorland and a plethora of smaller retail chains.

The other major (and larger) force in Australian retailing is Woolworths, who owns Woolworths supermarkets, Big W, Dan Murphy's, Woolworths Liquor, Home Timber & Hardware and approx. 300 pubs containing a good 40,000 poker machines.

Both companies also pretty much control petrol retailing in this country with their partnerships with Shell and Caltex.

The bottom line is that these two companies decide what goes on their shelves and the suppliers that permit the thumbscrews to be tightened the hardest get the most shelf space. In the most recent example, Woolworths has decided that they will not stock Coke's replacement brand for Coke Zero. The official reason is shelf space but the real reason is most likely related to money.

Bunnings has done the same in the past. They've taken several brands off their shelves. Wesfarmers and Woolworths openly admit that they do not want customers to have choice and as a part of this they wish to sell a generic brand of each product, alongside the top two selling name brands. Everyone else ultimately pays a king's ransom or gets the flick and no-one is going to pay the retailer to sell products at a loss, that's for sure.

A lot of good companies (both Australian and foreign) have been hurt by this policy. Coles and Woolworths are big and many people don't comprehend the power they have over retailing. One doesn't get that big by being anything but a pack of bastards.

When I was young there was quite a few leading paint companies and none of them owned each other back then. Dulux, Berger, Wattyl, Taubmans, Pascol and British Paints come to mind. Target also once sold its own brand of paint. That was back when each company as independent and made a wide choice of products that were generally available everywhere because we had more than one choice of hardware store as well.

Yeah I'm sure it runs deeper than we all know.
You must of done a bit of Marketing Brad?
Anyway , I'm hoping we now get some good products from the states with this change over.
Valspar has a huge choice in stains , not like the Wattyl with their 8 pigment to choose from.
Valspar have over 50 in pigment or dye.
Plus nitro Tints .
Pete

Valspar has a huge choice in stains

But it remains to be seen how many they choose to make available / keep stock of in Oz.

In specialty retail, market size and demand determines what is stocked, and in what sizes and quantities.

Supermarket giant ALDI is a "privately-held" company (not required to publish any data about its operation.)
The largest privately-held Australian company is Visy Industries ($5.7B annual revenue.)

Not bad for a mob that makes cardboard boxes, ay.

Not bad for a mob that makes cardboard boxes, ay.

Especially when you only have one real competitor. Far too cosy!