In the paint market, the word “water-based paint” often hits the eye. This shows that the market door has been opened to water-based paint products, and the key is in the hands of enterprises and dealers. Among the decorative materials in the building materials market this year, in addition to the rapid development of diatom mud, many flagship stores and specialty stores of water-based paint brands have also been established throughout the country. In the process of chatting with dealers and consumers, the small editor of Jiuzheng Building Materials Network learned that they all recognized the environmental protection of water-based paint: “As the name implies, water-based things are non-toxic and environmentally friendly.”

Doubt and confusion

However, dealers and consumers are still skeptical and confused about the characteristics and quality of water-based paint. The main reason is that there is still a significant gap between water-based paint and oily paint in terms of painting technology. Among them, the painters who are mainly responsible for painting have the most say in this regard. They report that the film hardness of most water-based paints is not up to the level of oily paints. In terms of painting, they need to paint more than oily paints, and the construction requirements are higher than oily paints. For most painters, they are more accustomed to using oily paint.

In fact, the manufacturing process of waterborne coatings is not complicated, just like that of paints. It is to use the core materials of synthetic waterborne resins, add additives such as leveling agent, defoamer, matting powder, etc. and water, and then stir and disperse at a high speed. However, the core of waterborne paint production technology is waterborne resin technology, which directly determines the quality of waterborne paint products.

There are only a few domestic enterprises that can synthesize high-quality and high-end water-based resins, and more synthetic resin enterprises can only produce low-end resins to meet low-end demand. In addition, due to the contraction of water-based paint product market, the market openness of high-quality high-end water-based resin is far from enough. As long as the core technology of water-based resin is broken through, the high-quality water-based coating produced can be comparable to the paint in performance.

However, the market is also full of cheap water-soluble resin coating film that can be dissolved in water, which has become the weakness of water-based paint production technology and directly affected the confidence of the market. It is understood that under the strong temptation of low input, high output and large market, many enterprises have avoided the heavy and light, abandoned the core resin technology and coating needs and other essential aspects of the study, and produced water-based paint products when the technology is not advanced enough and the quality has not yet fully met the standard, and rushed to the market, leading many consumers to doubt the use of water-based paint. Some business people said frankly that they produced a small amount of water-based products and placed them in the dealers, more for publicity, to show that “I can also produce water-based paint”, but they did not have too much expectation for the sales of water-based paint.

Improve market confidence

How can we improve the market’s confidence in water-based paint? Only practice can solve the problem.

Some dealers reported that after years of practice and application, the problem of water-based paint can be remedied by technical force. “Now the world’s water-based paint technology has been comparable to oil based paint, and even surpassed oil based paint in some aspects. It can be seen that the progress of products requires a process of practice, and the process of improving product performance in practical application requires our tolerance.”

The dealer also admitted that there is a big gap between water-based paint and oil-based paint in product performance, which requires time to continuously improve; The production cost of waterborne paint is always high, resulting in the lower cost performance of the product than that of oily paint, which requires us to find ways to reduce the cost from the actual production process and look at the waterborne paint market in a long-term perspective.

Some business people also saw the dawn of development. In recent years, with the economic progress and environmental deterioration, people’s requirements for environmental protection and healthy life have become increasingly strong. Since 2008, the three conditions that affect the development of water-based wood paint technology research and development, market demand, and policy support have become increasingly mature. “The development of water-based paint has been put on the agenda again by the industry. Fortunately, more and more furniture enterprises have used water-based wood paint, and more and more dealers have new knowledge and understanding of water-based paint.”

For dealers, they do not exclude the sale of water-based paint. The experience of some successful dealers shows that as long as the product quality is guaranteed and the sales method is appropriate, the market space of water-based paint is huge. Now, the most urgent thing to solve is to build up confidence in the market for water-based paint and establish a good market order. The former mainly refers to the consumer level, while the latter requires enterprises to provide good products.