If one of your winter projects includes freshening up the walls of your home with a new coat of paint, you might have trouble finding the brand you’re looking for. Supply chain shortages are now affecting the paint industry.
It’s something else you can blame on the pandemic. For the last year and a half, people have spent a lot more time at home and taken on more DIY projects. Industry analysts say paint supplies can no longer keep up with demand
“The raw-material shortage is still something we have a meeting once a week to discuss what are we out of this week,” Jeff Grasty, president of Florida Paints, told CNBC.
If consumers are having a hard time finding their favorite brand of paint, they may have to switch to another. Heather, of Ferndale, Mich., found herself in that situation and wasn’t pleased with Benjamin Moore as a substitute.
“It is the first time I bought this paint as I normally use Sherwin-Williams but the store was closed and I was in a hurry to get the paint for the professional painters I had hired,” Heather wrote in a ConsumerAffairs review. “They painted the ceiling and the trim with the paint and were very upset as it would glop and not spread evenly.”
How ConsumerAffairs reviewers rate paint companies
We consulted ConsumerAffairs reviewers about their favorite national brand of paint and found a high level of satisfaction with five major brands. Heather’s experience may have been an outlier since Benjamin Moore emerged on top.
On a 5-star rating system, here is how five major brands stack up with reviewers. Click the links to read hundreds of verified reviews:
Benjamin Moore 4.6
BEHR 4.5
Sherwin-Williams 4.4
Glidden 4.1
Valspar 3.8
Consumers may need to try other brands because the paint shortage may go on for a while, According to CNBC, sales at paint and wallpaper retailers jumped 7.8% in June 2021, from June 2020, totaling $1.34 billion.
Two major paint manufacturers, Sherwin-Williams and PPG, warned recently that worsening supply chain shortages are impairing their ability to turn out cans of paint. In particular, paint companies are having difficulty getting enough pigment to produce pre-pandemic levels of paint with consistent levels of color.