Temple & Webster offers first-ever paint range

Heather McIlvaine

1st May 2018

Online homewares retailer Temple & Webster has launched its first-ever premium paint range, including a curated selection of 20 classic and on-trend colours in two finishes, as well as related accessories, such as brushes, rollers, trays and drop sheets.

The collection, called Colour by Temple & Webster, was developed by the retailer’s in-house design experts in collaboration with longstanding Australian paint brand, Taubmans.

All the colours were designed to complement each other to make it easy for customers to mix and match shades for their walls, trims and accessories.  

“We wanted to make painting and choosing a colour palette – a sometimes daunting task – an enjoyable, exciting and convenient experience,” Temple & Webster’s head of trade and commercial Lucy Sutherland explained in a statement.

“And, by offering plenty of guidance we hope to make even the most inexperienced decorator feel like a colour and painting guru,” she said.

In the past Temple & Webster has differentiated by offering customers design advice on live chat, as well as a more personalised styling service, but the move into paint products represents a different level of diversification for the homewares business.

“It’s almost a backwards integration,” Gary Mortimer, associate professor in marketing and international business at QUT Business School, told Internet Retailing.

“I imagine that customers [who are redecorating their homes] would start at a Bunnings or hardware chain. They would buy paint first and then the homewares stuff. It’s quite smart [of Temple & Webster] to look at how they can grow their business without cannibalising their existing offering. They become almost a one-stop shop,” he said.

According to Mortimer, it makes a lot of sense to bridge the gap between the hardware and homewares categories, although retailers that previously attempted to do so haven’t always been successful.

He pointed to Masters Home Improvement, which he said copped criticism “for being a hardware chain trying to do cushions and rugs”.

“I think it’s easier for a decorator [retailer] to move backwards down the chain to offer [hardware] solutions to customers like paint,” he said, speculating that it may have something to do with the gendered way in which hardware and homewares products are marketed to consumers.

“Hardware has traditionally been a male-orientated retail context, whereas homewares and manchester and bedding tends to be quite female-gendered, which is disappointing because they’re actually very well-connected,” he said.