Packaging set of ready made frames to display and sell.

[Not your average framer]

Particularly with smaller ready made frames, it is much better for me to sell them in sets. Below a certain size ready made frames are a bit of a battle getting customers to pay a worthwhile price for them! Selling a set which make up a nice looking wall display, suits me much better. However I need to find a nice way to pack and display them in a cardboard tray in srink wrap. Making the cardboard trays at a adequately cheap and easy price are a little bit of a problem.

I can get these made at my local packaging company,(who have a box making machine), but this means making them in certain batch sizes to get the price and I will need somewhere to store my stock. It's not really a great solution so far! So at the moment, I'm just fishing for some alternative ideas and hope that someone else has some better ideas than me! S far this seem to be a non starter and I may just settle for just a wooden made tray for window display only, may may at least be better than nothing.

Any other ideas greatfully received.

Many thanks,
Mark.

[GeoSpectrum]

I’d sell them individually I think. How many sets are you going to sell when somebody just wants a quick and cheap frame for a photo of the dog?

[Not your average framer]

What happens when there is not enough profit in the smaller ready made frame, but they are small enough to make them out of your waste? I have some good friends who are interior designers and they tell me that these co-ordinated sets are becoming a real big thing these days and make good money! Currently it's the next trendy thing, until something else comes along, but I guess it's a wave worth riding until the main marketing people step in and kill it by making it too cheap.

[GeoSpectrum]

The time and money spent on packaging would out weigh the potential profit if it’s that’s thin. Why not sell then individually but offer ‘discounted’ prices for 3 or more?

[Steve N]

I used to sell (when I had my shop) 6x6 ready mades,they had a mount with a 4x4 window, in a box on the floor, £5.00 each or £20.00 for 5, used to work well, they were a mixed bunch, made from 'left overs'
All my others were as the photo I posted in another post the other week

[Not your average framer]

I make 5" x 5"'s for a 40 pence per foot factory finished moulding, These are made from left overs from larger sized ready made frames in the same moulding and there's not much else to do with them. There's not a huge potential for selling 5" x 5"'s so they are priced to sell at £4.50 each, which is not really worth it for me, but it beats putting the off cuts in the dumpster! My 6" x 6"'s in the same moulding sell for £5.00. It's really hard work getting any worthwhile money from customers for smaller frames around here. It's just not a helpful mentality.

They will spend £5 on petrol to go to Newton Abbot to save £2, rather than buy a better frame for not that much more and save paying for the petrol. It's not that they won't pay decent money for something a bit special and trendy, but they have got it in to there heads that ready made frames are always as cheap as chips. I does not matter how cheap something is priced, they always try to get it cheaper and I am supposed to be nice about it and speak to them politely.

[Not your average framer]

It definitely does help to buy in some nicely priced factory finished mouldings, so that I can offer somethig which is easily matched with another identical frame. It does not mean that they will pay anymore, but it does translate in to repeat sales, which helps a little, but not massively. There was a time when I could sell small ready made frames to tourists,but that just does not happen any more at all.