Making commercial-grade accessible

By Emma Peterson. 

Tremco’s Vulkem® Pro Series gives homeowners, prosumers and contractors access to products built for tougher applications.  

Recently, Tremco Roofing Products made their first move into the retail market with the Vulkem Pro Series. This series is a line of products aimed to deliver the performance that has made Tremco a leader in the commercial space to retail consumers. To learn more about how commercial-grade products like Tremco’s benefit retail markets, Megan Ellsworth spoke to Nathon “Nate” Laws in a CoatingsCast™ all about the Vulkem Pro Series.   

Nate started by highlighting some of the reasons Tremco decided to expand into retail. One was to meet the needs of retail customers. He explained, “There’s a known performance gap between what retail products and what commercial products offer. And there’s a growing category of prosumers out there who are not full-time professionals but take a lot of pride in their work and want to do it once, right.” 

For this growing category, that gap between traditional retail options and commercial grade has become a friction point. Nate elaborated, “Typical retail caulking products are great for everyday household repairs. But they don’t do as well for heavier duty applications.” He gave an example:  

If you have a control joint on your sidewalk in front of your house and you want to fill that joint, you could use a traditional retail latex caulk and get it to look halfway decent. But long term, it doesn't have the durability or the abrasion resistance to handle that application. By bringing the commercial-grade Vulkem Pro Series into these retail spaces, we are making sure that products that do meet those heavier-duty needs are available.  

The other big reason for the expansion into retail was to better serve the needs of their existing commercial contractors. Nate went into more detail of this use-case, sharing, “A lot of contractors that primarily buy through commercial distribution find themselves in retail centers looking for products at night, on the weekend or on a holiday when their traditional supplier isn't able to supply to them.” By bringing the Vulkem line into retail spaces, Tremco is helping these contractors make sure they have the right products when they need them.  

Listen to the whole podcast or Watch the recording to learn more about how Tremco is bringing commercial-grade products to retail locations.