A Falling Starr

Hardware cooperative Do it Best/True Value (DiBCo) announced it had “expanded its partnership with Sherwin-Williams,” taking an “important step” toward strengthening its long-term paint strategy. 

Which is currently in shambles.

While extolling the virtues of Sherwin’s private label paint program, the announcement details other changes the cooperative has made, as it nestles up even closer to the world’s largest paint maker.  Among them, the “phasing out” of architectural coatings from Glidden, which will no longer be available in DiBCo warehouses.  Further, the “bill-through program for Glidden will also be discontinued,” referring any members with plans to continue stocking Glidden or any other products from Pittsburgh to that company directly, with some exceptions.  Primarily cutting off Pittsburgh from that group, giving Sherwin exclusivity, for a reason which remains unclear.

With Pittsburgh disposed of, the cooperative added that it was “transitioning away” from applicators from Wooster, Linzer and Premier, with a goal of depleting that inventory before the end of the year.  With Sherwin-Williams likely replacing those lines, though the announcement did not offer those details. Whatever the need I’m sure Sherwin can fill it, it’s the company’s ethics I question not its capacity.

At some point we’ll know the details of the Faustian bargain DiBCo made with Sherwin, though I doubt knowing them will convince me this is anything other than pernicious.  The beginning of the end for the True Value and Do it Best paint programs, which may end up the cost of abandoning its principles as independents.  Now accepting the risk of victimhood at Sherwin’s hands, because with Sherwin-Williams there is always a victim.  Or perhaps millions of them, according to a case filed in California last week which accuses Sherwin of running an illegal wiretapping operation and harvesting personal data.  And feeding that data to third-party ad networks without the owner’s consent. 

Making Sherwin’s greed seem insatiable.

From Sherwin’s perspective I understand the agreement: with DiBCo doing just enough paint volume to justify the deal so adding the applicators makes it far more profitable.  Like a retailer reminding a customer to take a brush or a roller, an add-on sale which makes it all worthwhile.  Plus it gives Sherwin a beachhead to fight from, hoping to gain a foothold in paint’s only growing segment: the independent channel.  A wasted effort for Sherwin, at least while I’m alive.  

But from Do it Best’s perspective this deal makes little sense, with nothing gained beyond a few dollars and some added efficiencies CEO Dan Starr can brag about during an upcoming quarterly report.  Which won’t be nearly enough to cover the losses, which have already left Starr with hardware’s worst paint offering.  With much of the damage still to come and only a private label program from Sherwin-Williams to save them.  Which Heidi convinced Starr would be enough, despite having otherwise destroyed every brand Sherwin had in the channel, including Pratt & Lambert, Dutch Boy, Martin Senour and others laid to rest.  But not before decades-long death spirals for those dealers, which left them uncompetitive, as Do it Best is now.   

Explaining why these keep coming.   

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As a young Benjamin Moore retailer the representatives from that company were all white, despite my location in the Bronx, New York, then more than one-third each Black and Hispanic.  But in the early 2000s that started to change as more native New Yorkers were hired for those roles, creating racial diversity though the field is still dominated by men.  Which probably says more about how hard it is for a woman to work a paint territory than it does about Benjamin Moore. 

Because inside Moore’s corporate headquarters in Montvale it’s a different story, with both genders well represented on the staff of several hundred.  Where women are as likely as men to reach leadership positions, filling roles in the company’s suite and throughout their senior ranks.  Which caught the attention of Forbes Magazine recently, which placed Benjamin Moore on their list of the country’s 700 Best Employers for Women. 

The rankings were based on survey responses from more than 146,000 women who work at one of the nation’s (estimated) 10,000 corporations with a thousand or more employees.  Moore landing at #546 marks the cultural shift there, a determined pace for a company otherwise known for slower movements. 

Yet despite one paint company having a female CEO, it’s moving even slower.