pricing standardisation

[mathematician]

Hi FN

Thanks for your response.

There are a couple of issues here.
Sarah in her original post suggested that she should be able to charge a higher price because she produces better quality work. My point was that maybe his standard of work is as good as hers but his overheads are less.

It simply isn’t enough to say “My framing’s better than his”.

Taking your examples,I have no doubt that if you had the opportunity to speak to the MD of M&S or a main car dealer they would have absolutely no difficulty in justifying their prices.
We should be able to do the same – I am not saying we should explain our pricing to every customer but we should have the knowledge and understanding of our business to charge what we need to charge with confidence. Your not going to win every customer but I have had many cases where a customer was initially shocked by the price and was quite happy when I explained the processes and work involved.

I do actually agree with you that consumers tend to question frame pricing more than other products and services.
The companies you mentioned are large with large budgets for marketing and branding and usually the customer has been convinced before they walk through the door that they are going to get a good product or service.

Framers on the other hand tend to be small businesses with little or no marketing budget but the game is still the same. When your customer believes he’s getting a good job he doesn’t mind paying.
It’s our job to convince him (or her).


Hi Roboframer John. I don't have time this evening but I'll reply to your post tomorrow.

[absolute framing]

interesting post on the costings lemon-drop.

Even if you are using an "off-cut" - "scrap" to make the small mount, That small piece of material has a value, you did pay for it. So it might be worth 20p, but if there was 20p on the floor you would not throw it in the bin or sell it to customers for 10p. If i sold 20p pieces for 10p i'de be a very busy, poor man. I wouls have to give discounts for bulk orders of 20 p's, dropping my price to 7.5p per unit 1

Ok, i'm getting a little facetious !! My main point woudld be, that this small mount is being cut on an expensive machine (good mountcutter or cmc) which was not free and needs to be paid for, maintained, repaired and eventually replaced or upgaded. And if you do it on a cheap hand held cutter, then your labour will be high.

Regards,

Stephen

[sarah]

What I said in the original post:

In my opinion it’s because of the people who have no pricing structure, the “ah just give me a tenner” brigade!! Bugger off; charge what the job is worth!! If we all did that if we all charged the right price – regardless of the fact of it being a hobby or a profession – customers would realise that to custom frame a school photo is going to cost them roughly £20-£30 not £2-£5

Being serious I feel that the suppliers have a duty to ensure that framers charge the right price. At the end of the day it is their interest, the more profitable we are the more orders we’re going to place and the more profitable they’ll be!

The jist of this is I think people need to be educated as to the price of bespoke framing and all bespoke framers need to charge roughly the same price for the same job.

It is a real bone of contention for me, I hate hearing those seven words – “my mate can do it for cheaper”. If that ‘s the case let your mate do it and watch it fall apart in a week!!

This was said because I hate hearing customers belittle the bloody hard work we do. 12-15 hour days framing, then maybe an additional few hours doing books and keeping the tax man happy. On top of negotiating with land lords, staff, councils, and others.

Oh and I agree any idiot can frame, but not every idiot can frame well!!

[markw]

Lemondrop makes that basic mistake of not working out cost - CMC - storage - rent -rates - etc etc. The reality is so often that the expensive framer isnt expensive - hes just being realistic by charging enough to cover cost and maybe take home a few pence. I can think of many local hobby framers who dont make a penny - a few cheap end retailers who have gone bust. I cant think of any realy good professional framers who arent reasonably busy - as for customers who want me to justify my price - the only justification I will make is the finished product and that speaks for itself.

Easy - those framers who only have easy work havent reached the stage where anyone will trust them with the difficult stuff.

[mick11]

I don't think this has anything to do with what other framers are charging whether home based or not. It is down to the ready made market.

Take a look at the prices in any gift type shop and places like B&Q and market traders that sell frames, most imported from Asia or mass produced in the UK and europe.

The majority of the public think we can produce frames at the same price,which of course we cant.

What the public dont seem to be able to grasp is the vast difference in the quality.

[Roboframer]

"The jist of this is I think people need to be educated as to the price of bespoke framing and all bespoke framers need to charge roughly the same price for the same job"


I thought that this was what was meant, but then thought 'surely not' more later!

[Not your average framer]

Hi,

I don't see any reason for charging the same price as anyone else. It's obvious that generally, you get what you pay for! Discerning customers know this and are happy to pay for a superior product plus a greater range to choose from. It's that simple!

In which end of the market do you want to be, the Harrods end, or the Woolworths end? When I used to do cheap deals all I got out of it was too many cheap jobs and not much money for all my hard work!

Amongst my stock is an antique punch cartoon which says it all. An artist is painting while his young lady or wife suggests: "Darling, I'm sure that if you sold your paintings for half the price, you would sell twice as many"

By the way, Lemon Drop's £1.50 mount would cost £3.00 from me in whitecore, £4.50 in ArtCare Conservation and £6.00 in Cotton Rag Museum board. My margins are enough to be able to have stocks of each type of board. Also Bainbrige whitecore board is larger that most at 48" x 32" for £3.15 + VAT, which is a useful boost to one's profits too!
Cheers,
Mark

[mathematician]

Sarah wrote: "The jist of this is I think people need to be educated as to the price of bespoke framing and all bespoke framers need to charge roughly the same price for the same job."


While we're price fixing why don't we make sure all restaurants charge the same price for the same dishes regardless of the chef - I always thought Paul Rankin charged too much anyway.
And airlines should all charge the same price for the same routes - no more Easyjet.
And what about supermarkets - no more buy one get one free or special offers.

In short, it is entirely the business owners decision what price they want to charge and the customers decision if they want to pay it.

[Roboframer]

Absolutely!

Let's go to extremes here. We have a very very good framer in the Gorbals in Glasgow.

We have another very very good framer in Kensington...

I don't think I need go any further!

[mathematician]

MarkW wrote: as for customers who want me to justify my price - the only justification I will make is the finished product and that speaks for itself.



Regardless of what business you are in, if you are not experiencing some resistance to your pricing then you are definitely not charging enough.

[osgood]

It is a real bone of contention for me, I hate hearing those seven words – “my mate can do it for cheaper”.

I have a small sign that says:
"I have no qualm with a man who has lower prices, for it is only he who knows the value of his product" (don't know who wrote that - I didn't)

And another small sign that says:
“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.” - John Ruskin

This is another good one:
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”

If your El Cheapo customer can't work out what those quotes mean then you could paraphrase them into something like:
"You get what you pay for"

If they still don't get it, then you probably don't want them as a customer, because you will never please them unless you almost give away your product.

If you think you need to get every job that comes through the door, you probably should get a job with the mate who can do it cheaper because you will have to become cheap, very cheap!

[John]

Regardless of what business you are in, if you are not experiencing some resistance to your pricing then you are definitely not charging enough.

Not only a mathematician but also a wordsmith. This is what I have been saying for years, but never so eloquently.

We should all keep this in mind to reflect on the next time we hear the words "How much?" spoken with that rising inflection. You know, the one that ends in a frequency that is actually outside the range of human hearing.

[markw]

Osgood - great quotes.

We need to understand the attitude of customers who think we are expensive - we dont have to agree.

When someone walks into my shop I want them to feel relaxed and confident that they will get exactly what they want. The customer who's only aim is to spend as little as possible starts out aggresivly - if you cant put them at their ease fairly quickly then your flogging a dead horse and never will get the right result. How many of us know from the outset that the customer who demands cheap is almost invariably the customer who doesnt like what they get - I dont do cheap.
I have said before that I dont justify my prices - but I am not so pompous that I turn customers away because they think they cant afford my prices. I often find that by showing customers that if they pay for a quality job they get what they want then they keep coming back - Educating our customer is one of those basics skills that we need front of shop.

Without plugging John's product (Pre - View) its amazing how showing customers a finished view of the frame can sway customers into going for a more expensive moulding - additional mounts etc. Its made me realise that most customers cant imagine the finished product and either stick to - narrow moulding should be cheap - keep the mount small etc - seeing the result of bigger mouldings - wider mounts can sell a much enhanced package.

[sarah]

I may have worded my post wrong.

What I'm trying quite unsuccessfully to convey is that I believe that customers should have a better understanding of prices for bespoke framing.

It's all to do with expectations. You walk into a greasy spoon and you expect to pay greasy spoon prices, you walk into a 5 star restaurant you expect to pay a different price.

I would love customers to have an expectation of the cost of bespoke framing.

[osgood]

I would love customers to have an expectation of the cost of bespoke framing.

I don't know much about framing customers in your country, but down here it will never be possible for customers to have an expectation of the cost of custom/bespoke framing. There are way too many variables!

For instance, one framer can custom frame a piece of artwork using materials that cost less than half that of another framer. The time spent on the same job can also be radically different and the business expenses can vary greatly.
Prices will never be the same in different businesses. If they were the same, then the guy who uses crap materials and rushes the job and does shoddy work, makes a huge amount more profit than the guy who uses top quality materials and spends more time on the job. Surely you wouldn't want that????

I think that you have forgotten to recognise that different framers do things differently. We don't all do things the same way!

[Lemon_Drop]

[quote="markw"]Lemondrop makes that basic mistake of not working out cost - CMC - storage - rent -rates - etc etc.
Sorry Mark, but I dont have any costs like rent or rates or storage for that matter. Im in the fortunate position that those little problems dont enter into my costings, but looking at the posts maybe they should, or then again maybe I'm getting greedy.

[mathematician]

Hi Roboframer

Sorry for delay in replying to your post from 15 May.
There is nothing in your post with which I would disagree - those 2 types of framers do indeed exist.

However, the framing job in Sarah’s example was a photograph and the point I was making was that we shouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that someone down the road can do it cheaper as it is neither difficult nor expensive to start framing. There are many people framing as a sideline or a hobby quite happy do that kind of work for a fraction of what we need to charge and it is basic framing so their quality standards are probably acceptable. Ultimately, if we charge £30 and someone else charges £10, the customer will probably choose the latter unless it is demonstrable where the £20 value lies.

If the item to be framed is something of value then the customer will almost certainly want it framed by a professional who knows how to handle such things.
The nature of our business is that the majority of our customers bring to us for framing, things that are of sentimental or monetary value and often look for low cost framing alternatives for those items of lesser value.
To me, this is perfectly natural and acceptable.
Any of us can choose to supply the cheapie market or the more expensive custom framing market. I don’t believe it is possible to service both markets without presenting conflicting images of our business.


I could elaborate much more but it would not be in the context of Sarah’s original question so I’ll save it for another thread.