First-time plant owners compare resin prices and stop there. In practice, the resin quote is the part of the cost you have least control over — and the parts you can control are the ones nobody quotes you.
You are probably shipping water
- A water-based coating is roughly half water. Importing the finished product means paying ocean freight and duty on that water.
- Import the resin at 50% solids and add local water and filler, and the freight per finished tonne collapses.
- This single effect is usually the largest term in the whole business case.
Minimum order quantities set your working capital
- A speciality additive with a one-tonne minimum can tie up more cash than your mixer did, and it will sit in the store for a year.
- We formulate to keep the number of small-volume speciality inputs down, and consolidate what remains into one container.
- Ask every supplier for their MOQ before you ask for their price.
Duty rates reward the right tariff line
- Many countries in our markets tax finished construction chemicals far more heavily than the raw polymers and fillers used to make them.
- That gap is deliberate industrial policy, and it is the reason local blending works at all.
- Check the applicable rate on each input before the formulation is locked, not after.
The short version
Cost per tonne of finished product, landed in your warehouse, is the only number worth comparing. Resin price alone will mislead you.