making ready made frames that sell well

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Not your average framer
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Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
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making ready made frames that sell well

Post by Not your average framer »

I have been noticing that it is possible to make ready made frames that customers will buy in reference to the usual mass produced offerings from normal non-picture framing sources. In particular, I produce a useful level of left over oak mouldings that remain after making oak frames to order. Of course, I cannot sell RMF's for the same price as frames that are produced specifically for customers orders, but I am still looking to get a better price than the "run of the mill" mass produced stuff.

What I am finding is that the secret is that successful RMF's have to be something that customers will regard as really special and obviously above average quality and perhaps something which visitors to their homes will regard as demonstrating their hosts good taste. We all end up with a quantity of left over backing board, mountboard and glass, which often gives us the opportunity to produce really stunning RMF's with tastefully wider mounts for smaller photos and artworks.

The only difficulty is having enough quality left over bits of moulding to produce the frames which are large enough to accommodate the larger mounts. This only takes a bit of thinking about while you are working to produce your normal custom framing. Very often, the difference between producing off cuts that are barely big enough to make a decent looking frame and a much better proportioned frame is only an extra couple of inches and in financial terms choosing to maximise the potential value of your usable off cuts by not cutting them too small when using better quality mouldings can increase the money that you can charge for the RMF's you make from your off cuts.

Obviously less exciting mouldings are not worth doing this which and in general, I don't bother to do anything with off cuts that are not large enough to put back into stock. but bin them instead. I have certain mouldings which I generally like to keep a reasonable quantity of and this particularly applies to my favourite oak mouldings and having a good stock allows me to make my customers frames some that I obtain a good match between all four lengths of moulding used on each frame, so to some degree I can pick and choose where I will cuts mouldings so as to maximise the useful size of my off cuts.

I regard my off cuts of backing board, mountboard and glass, when they are below a certain size as basically of no value, particularly as they have already been included in the cost charged for making frames. So in order to gain worthwhile value from these bits, I am looking to avoid producing too many off cuts which are unnecessarily small, so as to maximise the potential for producing higher value RMF's. There are limits to when I will do this as there is no point in generating too many RMF's as you can only stock and display so many, some my intentions to maximise my off cuts depend upon my potential to display and sell RMF's.

I suspect that not everyone will share my thinking, particularly those with busier businesses and look forward to hearing comments from others.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Justintime
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Re: making ready made frames that sell well

Post by Justintime »

We all need an artist in our lives Mark!
My wife completed a project in November, it had taken about 6 or 8 months to complete, called 101 Daily Reminders, each piece was hand printed from a hand lettering papercut. We worked out that a good frame size was 150mmx150mm. So for 6 months, I only threw out oak offcuts less than this size! She soon had over 101 polished oak frames, mounts undermounts backboard and glass. I admit I had to buy the mounboard (36 mounts per sheet) and some of the oak moulding.
Where her work is in series', we're planning frame sizes ahead of time, to allow me to use offcuts for as much as possible.
What I'm trying to say is that if we could all find an artist like this nearby, there would be very little wastage at all and a very happy artist! There were lots of little details we had to iron out (including teaching her to fit and finish the framing to my standard :giggle: ) but its a slow steady income stream for me, as she sells her work.
(This project is on Instagram @101dailyreminders ...shameless plug..)
Justin George GCF(APF)
Insta: georgetheframer
Not your average framer
Posts: 11013
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: making ready made frames that sell well

Post by Not your average framer »

Worth doing isn't it. Oak mouldings sell like crazy for me. I'm really pushing hardwood mouldings in general these days, I think people are getting fed up with same old, same old. I used to find that selling ready made frames was a lot easier, but people are clearly looking for something a bit more special these days. It's taken me a while to find this out, I've got a few locals who have regularly bought RMF's over a really long period and still do, but selling RMF's as an item to passing customers that will buy on impulse after seeing them in the window, has definitely dropped of a lot over the last couple of years. Summer visitors don't spend as much as they once did and it takes a while to figure out what will tempt them enough to sell RMF's as easily as before.

"Run of the mill" RMF's no longer sell for me, people who buy these go for the cheapest available and what a frame looks like does not matter. It's just another commodity and there's no money in it. The principle reason that people are not buying my more ordinary RMF's now is that people want something more quality and craftsman oriented. The people who are buying my better quality RMF's don't mind paying a decent price for them as well. I bought a bench top belt sander last year and I've been producing some very well finished frames using my hardwood moulding off cuts and finishing the mitres using the finest grit belts that fit my belt sander, The mitres are super tight and ultra smooth at the transition between both lengths of moulding at each corner.

Sadly, most of my off cuts of less exciting moildings just seem to be not worth trying to make much out of any more. Some of my regular RMF customers are producing framed items to sell and even will stock up on frames that they like and figure what to do with them later, but most of my customers who do this are very picky about what they really want. Things have changed a lot for me and I am having to produce my RMF's to target a much more focused market than ever before, to get a worthwhile volume of RMF sales at all. It a general thing that the smaller rural towns in my part of Devon are not very bouyant at this time, my own town has now lost it's last bank and the town is almost empty these days, but some of us are trying to raise our game in different ways.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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