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What is Paint Trend 'n Trade?

YOUR COMMUNITY STORES

Paint Trend ’n Trade stores are independently owned Specialist Paint Stores that are members of the Essential National Buying Group which is over 370 members strong. Storeowners live in the community they serve and understand your unique local needs. Our unique affiliation with a leading paint manufacturer gives our members that competitive edge whilst also enabling trade contractors to have custom paint developed for their specific needs. Shop with the comfort of knowing that their membership to Paint Trend ’n Trade gives them excellent Buying Power and support from a national team.

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Our Products

Select a brand below to view our products & more information on them.

Excelsior Paints

You can't buy a better paint for less!

See our Excelsior Products

Qolor

Switched on coatings!

See our Qolor Products

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Want to Join the Paint Trend 'n Trade Family?

Stay independent

We help you grow your business to the next level while you remain independent

Buying Power

With over 300 retail members our Buying Group leverages substantial negotiating power

Growth Solutions

Take the next step to maturity & grow with our cross industry partnering solutions

Visit our Retail Buying Group

Essential Group Retail Brands

Part of our triple award-winning Buying Group
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A division of the Essential National Buying Group

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Our History, Executive Summary & Company Values

Paint Trend ’n Trade was established as a Specialty Paint destination that would be community based independently owned stores throughout Southern Africa. In addition to stocking leading brands, we have our own Private Label brand QOLOR and a unique relationship with a leading manufacturer, that enables trade customers (developers & contractors) to request custom specification paints for their own purposes.
 

Paint Trend ’n Trade leverage from an award winning group, the Essential Group of over 300 members….see history below…

Growth through Partnering

The Essential Group, established 2005, started out by partnering with independent, community based, owner-run hardware stores as a national buying group. This quickly evolved (by member demand) into a national brand – Essential Hardware. Immediately thereafter, a series of value-adding services were brought into the offering adding to the buying group and brand to include high quality operational science & marketing support.

Our model has proved so successful our partnerships comprise a family of over 300 members throughout South and Southern Africa, whose membership is still continuously growing. Our model, which we guarantee subject to specific conditions, has further enabled us to be the proud recipients of the accolade of being the Gold Award winners for “Voluntary Trading Group of the year” for the past two consecutive years.
 
In 2017 we introduced a new Specialty Retail Brand, Paint Tend ’n Trade. Leveraging our substantial retail resource pool, supplier network and national geographic footprint, this new brand is focused on being a premium, specialist paint destination, once again providing unique solutions for our members and customers.
We view the (well established) Buying Group as a business ENABLER and now, in 2018, have formally announced a new ENABLER, Essential Growth Solutions. This new enabler is focused on B2B transformational partnerships and will leverage the, well established, Buying Group & national retail footprint of over 300 members/partners and hundreds of suppliers/partners.
 
We believe that by following our vision, remaining humble, keeping to our values and setting the standard through hard work, we will in the future announce far-reaching, complementary products and services all focused on achieving a full service (360 deg) turnkey offering and providing cross industry problem solving solutions… becoming THE PARTNER OF CHOICE for exponential growth within the markets and communities we operate within.

We commit ourselves to:

  • Gratitude, respect, honesty & credibility
  • Operating within strict legal and ethical guidelines
  • Offering unsurpassed service levels and support to the member network
  • Always acting in the best interest of the organisation and member
  • Instilling a culture of service and continuous learning
  • Ensuring that the organisation always operates within legal and labour policies
  • Constantly adding value to our members
  • Using innovation and communication as a key driver
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