The Framers Forum

It's sod's law that the next frame in that expensive Arqadia moulding is a bit bigger than the off-cut you have ... so you buy another single length but that's a slightly different finish... so you have to buy another length ... at least you know where you stand (financially) with CHOP I suppose.

The only drawback I can see with CHOP is that I'd be paranoid about messing up when underpinning

The cost per metre might be more for chop, but the profits to be made are higher too. Is that not what a successful business should be doing? Making profit. We are. Business is booming and customers keep coming back so we must be doing something right.

stcstc wrote:well you will sell if it doesnt get damaged or whatever sat in the shop waiting to be sold etc

I have over 200 different mouldings in stock in 55 vertical bays (for full lengths) and the same number of tubes for part lengths. Don't lose much to damage. At last stocktake this equated to about 10k of "tied up" funds ( or future profit as I like to think of it) I could of course put this into a high interest account and earn what £100 pa. Most of this moulding I've bought in box quantity which gives me quite a good discount on the length price and a significant saving on the chop price.

Mary Case GCF wrote:The cost per metre might be more for chop, but the profits to be made are higher too. Is that not what a successful business should be doing? Making profit. We are. Business is booming and customers keep coming back so we must be doing something right.

Can you run the numbers through for me? Do you mean on an individual frame, or in the long run using up the offcuts?

I'm glad your business is booming, but I'm not sure your returning customers care whether you buy length or chop! You must be offering a good service at a good price regardless of method.

Bagpuss wrote:It's sod's law that the next frame in that expensive Arqadia moulding is a bit bigger than the off-cut you have ... so you buy another single length but that's a slightly different finish... so you have to buy another length ... at least you know where you stand (financially) with CHOP I suppose.

The only drawback I can see with CHOP is that I'd be paranoid about messing up when underpinning

If the next frame is bigger than 1 length plus my offcut I don't see how a chop for it would be more economical, i'd buy 6m, and have enough over for a large frame the time after. If the lengths don't match my offcut I've still got 2m to make a 300x300 to stick a mirror in and sell for £20, still a £10 profit on the £4 cost of the offcut.

I agree this is a very interesting thread, very thought provoking indeed. I've only been in business full-time for 3 years so wouldn't dream to criticise anyone who's been in business much longer but if I had £10k going spare, I wouldn't put it in a High Interest account, I'd invest it back in the business, hiring extra staff for a few days a week, invest in a CMC mountcutter, give my website a make over, the sort of thing that'll allow you take in more work to make more money for the business

No offence meant, just an observation, what does everybody else think ?

I don't see 10k stock as much to have tied up, certainly not compared to most other types of shop.If it is stored well very little is damaged.

Can you run the numbers through for me? Do you mean on an individual frame, or in the long run using up the offcuts?

I very rarely look at individual prices and compare chop against length- I only do it as an exercise from time to time to make sure I'm making an adequate profit on a job. We charge our customer length price, using our usual mark-up and wastage factor, which more than compensates for the extra cost. Because I don't have to buy length, I can offer expensive mouldings I wouldn't dream of stocking, which engender even greater profits. We now offer 1500+ mouldings - I couldn't do that if I didn't buy chop. My customers like the choice- they are the ones who decide if a frame is too expensive, and if it is, we have plenty of other frames to choose from that might be cheaper. You say, Abacus, that you have 10K in future profit- that assumes you sell it all. I'm making my profits now when they are most useful to my business.

Mary Case GCF wrote:
I very rarely look at individual prices and compare chop against length- I only do it as an exercise from time to time to make sure I'm making an adequate profit on a job. We charge our customer length price, using our usual mark-up and wastage factor, which more than compensates for the extra cost. Because I don't have to buy length, I can offer expensive mouldings I wouldn't dream of stocking, which engender even greater profits. We now offer 1500+ mouldings - I couldn't do that if I didn't buy chop. My customers like the choice- they are the ones who decide if a frame is too expensive, and if it is, we have plenty of other frames to choose from that might be cheaper. You say, Abacus, that you have 10K in future profit- that assumes you sell it all. I'm making my profits now when they are most useful to my business.

Sorry, I still don't understand where the "extra" profit comes from (good profit I understand!) from buying chop. I don't stock the expensive mouldings, just buy them in length and keep the offcuts. Most of my 10k of stock I have bought at box price (length price - 30%) and will turn it over in a month or so, meaning "extra" profit, although some I bought in job lots at ridiculous discounts and will make oodles on, eventually.

But as long as your business model works for you, keep at it. Ours works for us, and has for the past 33 odd years. Horses for courses etc

I can easily understand why a very busy growing framing business would find the reasons for switching to buying higher value mouldings on chop highly persuassive.

It's one less operation for hard pressed staff to have to worry about when making the frame.

Less time and effort involved in waste management and disposal.

And somebody else has to pay for any mistakes such as cutting the moulding too short.

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Buying mouldings on chop would not easily work for some of my jobs, because I do a fair number of stacked moulding frames and each frame has to be carefully sized to be a perfect fit with the adjacent frames.

All that said though, if you had got a well orgainsed system with a weekly cut off day for ordering the week's chop orders, I reckon that you could operate a very fast turn around on quite a high volume of framing orders. When combined with an in-house CMC, you could create a very fast service with minimal staffing requirements and minimal cock-ups. Good stock control and timing of delivers would be key to success.

When we have finished our shop refurbishment, our moulding storage capacity will be greatly reduced and there's nothing we can do about it at this stage. So, perhaps some measure of buying moulding on chop might be our logical next move. I think I'd need to consider this very carefully and to fully understand all of the implication, before taking the plunge.

From my earlier days working in industry, I can remember that a lot of companies got involved in out sourcing goods and services as a way of getting greater flexiblity and higher efficiency. Perhaps this is the future way to go for many more of us.

A very interesting thread so far!

Just sent an order away for 65 chop frames split between 5 companies.

They should all be in stock and with us by Thursday at the latest.

Imagine how much more money you would have made chopping them your self, I have no problem chopping expensive molding, all you need is a corner you don't have to have it in stock to sell it, I just don't see where you are coming from, I can see the point of chop if you have limited space and want to offer a big range of moulding but so far each point you have put forward is irrelevant, you can offer expensive stuff without stocking it you just need a sample, we just took a order for a £12 a metre moulding that we had not stocked before, I mentioned to my staff that we could do with selling the off cuts, they have sold 3 x football shirts and 3 other pictures in it,
now I have to re order.

We tend like abacus to order by the box and charge like you by the length, you are paying 30% or so more than length I am paying 30% or so less than length.

A situation arose last week that made me consider chop, a Larson Juhl moulding from the 'Marais' range - I'd had the full chevron set on my wall since it came out and no-one had ever gone for this one before so I was sure I didn't want a lot of wastage.

Would a 'pack' be one or two lengths? If one length how long? If two lengths how much more would it cost than a chop frame? Also, if two lengths, how much premium would I pay for a single length? (Arqadia will split packs on L Juhl mouldings for a premium)

I required 2.86m - went to the online order form - yippee - a 'pack' was one length and a length was 3m.

But any damage and I'd be screwed - so - let's just see how chop compares to two lengths - two lengths was £36.90 - chop service was £35.49. So why go for either when I could buy one 3m length for £18:45?

I specified 'NO STICKERS' on the special instructions and took my chances on damage through handling - it would be replaced swiftly.

Order confirmation by email minutes later - price per metre £6.15 - total per reference £18.45 - so - two forms that told me 3 metres were coming.

What actually came was 2.7m!!

But how big a deal is that compared to if I was a mainly chop type framer? The difference was £1.41 and I can assure you I'll make far far more than that from the offcuts I'm forced to have - and even if it's 'eventually' - it's still only £1.41 and 'eventually' can't happen for the chop framer.

You should have specified 3m length they will call if not available.

I know - when it came I thought "DANG - should've specified" but the thing is I would still, at that price difference, have gone for two lengths; not chop - the job just won't get done as quick, that's all.

By the way the moulding I was referring to was the wide dresden moulding (not sure on exact price but not cheap) you had posted to someone else robo, I have found it sells really well all versions of it, just done a WWII RAF jacket in it, it looks awesome + all of above and a couple others too probably £2k +, so thank you.

No disrespect to/not trying to convert - anyone that's totally or mainly chop BTW, what works for you, works for you. It works for me, sometimes, it's there when I want/need it but so's all my luverly stock - which I admit is 'a bit silly' - e.g. our on-going stocktake has so far revealed that I have quite a bit of stock of one particular L Juhl range that I don't even show any samples of! Plus 20 different mount slips totalling approx 675 ft (which I do show - plus more)

When it's all done (only two shelving areas done so far which hold 205 different mouldings of one full length or more - 3 more shelving areas (walls) to go) all the corner samples of in-stock mouldings will go together in one area and that's what we'll plug for - unless something really begs for something not in stock.

Don't have a pricing programme, yet, but it'll all go in to excel and be updated as orders are taken - I did try that once before but totally screwed it up. Now I have a framer that knows 'puters and eventually/the plan is, we'll get from 5 walls of shelves, to two.

Embrace the computer, it is your friend