I have been asked a few times about having other colours such as primrose and hawthorn green on our brackets. This was something that we used to do so i thought I would write down what’s changed over the last 10 years or so.
In the past most fence panels were made within Australia and the main colours were black, primrose, pearl white and either hawthorn or heritage green. There were a few others but these were the main ones. In most cases because the panels were made within Australia they also required powder coating locally too. Most panel lots were painted to order so 1 house worth of panels here and there with the main colours being held in stock, this allowed alot of flexibility with colour choice and you found the market allowed for more and getting the brackets painted at these same places also allowed us to keep stock of a certain colour. Anything more exotic we would just supply mill to the powder coater and they would do the brackets and panels together.
Of all the colours even then black was the main one so when importing panels become the “norm” the importers took advantage of the difference in powder coating prices and brought in the main colour only. I need to stress the difference in powder coating costs between Asia and Australia are massive, it’s not 20→30% cheaper but x3→x4 times cheaper which makes a very big difference to the importer/seller as well as to the customer.
Over time because of this the market share of black, which was 40→50% to begin with became 95% of the market. This is why we, also as an importer (from our own foundry in Malaysia), do not get any benefit of holding anything other than black with mill as well for any of the other colours painted locally. I have a big customer in QLD that’s held onto the same white brackets for years.