Picture Framing in Decline?

[John]

Having just heard of yet another local, well established, framer going out of business, I came across this thread in the US Grumble which poses the question: - "Why do picture framers have to be poor?"

http://www.thegrumble.com/cgibin/ultima ... 1;t=007257

Are we witnessing a worldwide decline in our business?

[Dermot]

John I have being following the ups and downs of the framing world on the US Grumble for quite a few years now…..I don’t think the market for wall decoration is declining …….more the change is in how the wall decoration is delivered….

My own feeling is that most framers don’t really know what market they are in ( I base this from the time I had the glass distribution business and I was calling on framers every day)….and for the most part I include myself in that bracket…….this is why for the past few years I have studied just about everything I can find out abut Maximum Preservation Picture Framing…….and why I support FACTS and why I’m leaving in the morning for the US for two weeks for a very intense personalised training in the methodology of Maximum Preservation Picture Framing at a framing studio in Michigan….this training is been conducted for just myself by one of the founder patron of FACTS….it is an intense one to one training I will also be attending the FACTS meeting in Atlanta …..I’m hoping that the result will be that I can corner a niche sector of the framing market in Ireland…..I believe there is nobody else framing to this standard in Ireland and that there is only about 5 or 6 framers doing it across the pond in England…..I’m tired of the general framing market in Ireland….and have made a decision to call it quits for day to day framing….I just cannot face it anymore…..perhaps it was never meant for me…..my background is of a scientific nature and niche marketing….consequently I feel very comfortable with Maximum Preservation Picture Framing….though it is very hard to achieve the level of framing I’m now ascribing to with the supply chain of materials in Europe…..for example…I recently need a special adhesive…it is not available in Europe I had to mix the adhesive myself and test it myself…..and that was only one of the problems I faces…with the particular Maximum Preservation Picture Framing project I had on hand…..

My belief is in niche marketing…..

Though I still think there is a few major retail framing opportunities here…..but the investment required frightens the life out of me…

You asked the question is framing in decline….I do not know…but one thing is for sure it is changing…….well I’m committing another 6 to 12 months and if I feel that things are not changing for me it will be off to pastures new….fortunately I have a small distribution business (not framing) which is on hold/ticking over at present and I have that to fall back on ……and my wife Jean is very good at making money……sometimes I wonder why I bother working….truth is that I have no real financial need to….but then again I think been a man of leisure would drive me around the twist…

This thread can be a great one if it gets people thinking about what they are truly doing and what sector of the market they are in….bottom line is there is a further in framing….the big question is what is the further…

[markw]

it seems ironic that the previous post is from someone just starting in the business.
For me its been a lousy summer - following a brilliant spring and a fair christmas - and now things are starting to get busy again - but the underlying profit has been hit by my local authority doubling car park charging - custom just seemed to melt away - not just for me as a framer - but all businesses in the town. how do you fight such stupidity.

Framers do tend to be a little eccentric, how many of us realy sit down and do the maths. From the threads on pricing you can see that undercharging is rife - we tend to see percieved value as the right price - i would rather do less work at a higher price - if people want a cheap frame then they realy dont want a bespoke framing job and nothing i can do will accomodate them - apart from cutting my margin to an unnacceptable level.

So if we get that out of the way we are left with getting enough people to use our services - good location is paramount ( avoid areas that have idiot councils - very difficult nowadays) good communication - front of shop and beyond. Dermot - your niche market will payoff - but it wont

[markw]

****** pressed the wrong key - i will continue - sorry.
Dermot - the more niche you are the more you need to be able to define to joe public just exactly what you do - and why its so expensive - or in my view, so reasonably priced.

We can have a good standard of living - but as with all succesfull businesses you have to work hard to achieve it .

[John]

Dermot, I imagine that your niche market will be with museums, galleries, and serious collectors rather than the general public. It could be a winner, provided you have done your homework and verified that there is a real need for this type of service. Well done for going to such lengths (in every sense of the word) to gain the necessary skills.

[Merlin]

We too have problems with our local council. Yes an increase in car parking fees combined with a maximum stay of 3 hours !!! Has really turned away the holiday people from our town.. This is a fairly large town in West Cornwall with a lot of history. According to the tourist information people, the number of visitors are up on last year as well..

Having said all that and having tried fighting the 'brick wall' of a council, my local custom and framing is equal to last year, (as of today) and for us that was a record year of 7 in the business. What is in decline is the actual number of framed pictures moving from the gallery wall and prints from the browsers.

Another suprise is the number of 'end of stick' ready mades that are being sold over the last two months. About 60% more than last year !!

I have two other competitors, both within half mile of me and they are experiencing the same. Local custom and not holiday custom. They also cannot put a finger on any particular theme or style of pictures being sold.

We just keep plugging away, providing a professional service and word of mouth is doing the rest....

[SquareFrames]

Hi All,

The decline, we have noticed here, is one of no one buying origianl artwork from our gallery. Yes. we sell the odd one or two per week, icing on the cake, but not even a jot of what we used to sell. Reason for this? Simple, and in ours and many other framers and galleries like ourselves, unless you are just dead, extinct, on the way out, of a certain religion, based in Belfast and on one certain road (John will know it well), artists have no chance of making here in Northern Ireland, Your face or corpse has got to fit in with what the money people like. With that in mind, at New Year, this year we decided to give up one of our gallery floors and dedicate it to picture framing only, leaving us now with 2 floors of workshops and one gallery floor, and by what we have had to frame from January this year we should have done it years ago. What a waste of 'productive' space our middle floor was, but is now in full swing and earning its keep. I have heard from gallery owners across on the mainland, and they have had the same problem, although not with our excuse, but with major publishers dictating the market, therefore no up and coming artist getting the chance.

One other tging that made up our mind to close down one of our gallery floors, is the fact that our town, albeit an historic market town steeped in history and all that, is like a ghost town. 75% of the buildings are either boarded up or derilict, so the town is being bypassed as a matter of course, so we like John(UK) states we have to push on, work harder and let make our voices heard above the rest.

Dermot's maximum conservation or preservation, truthfully I dont believe its exists at all, there is no such thing. Nothing can be protected to that level, but we all have access to the best quality materials available to us, no matter where we are, whether it be here in Ulster, in Eire, UK, USA, all the materials are the same for everyone, so when I do a Preservation job for a museum or frame a priceless work of art, everyone else is able to do the same. Sorry Dermot, my opinion! But Hey!, if you corner a market for it, fair play to you!

Steven
SquareFrames

[Underpinner]

It is interesting that this question should have arisen just at the end of the peak holiday season in a year in which so many small business owners have been complaining of poor sales. The first thing to say is that this year’s experience alone does not necessarily indicate a decline in the framing industry. A reluctance to spend on the part of the public is hardly surprising when we are told that personal borrowing is at an all-time record high in the UK and when interest rate increases so far this year will have increased monthly mortgage payments for many people by up to £200 per month, not to mention credit card interest etc.
Even so, I would say that picture framing is in decline – and has been for years, just like so many other industries based on thousands of small, labour-intensive businesses whose shops used to be found on every high street. It seems to me that the “average customer” (for want of a better phrase) is much more likely now than in the past to consider the value of the item being framed, in relation to the cost of framing, and much less likely to have inexpensive or small items framed individually. This is due to the increasing cost of framing – a topic to which framers seem reluctant to pay detailed attention (as this forum has shown already).
However, those of us who remain in business must have paid some attention to costs and to our prices and we know that, in reality, there is not that much difference in time between making a 20 x 16in frame and a 14 x 10in frame, and the material costs are not vastly different either. And so, unless we introduce a wholly unjustified discount just to keep the customer happy we will lose a lot of business for smaller frames – but the discount comes straight out of our wages. So the choice is simple: Work for less money (or no wages at all) or forget the large volume of smaller work that came our way only 4-5 years ago.
Similarly, the overall cost of framing is now so high that not only must the item being framed be thoroughly worth the expense, but it might as well be framed to conservation standards, since the difference in costs between conservation and commended is relatively small and any lesser standard is unacceptable so far as I am concerned.
So, for the reasons outlined above, my business is in decline inasmuch as I find myself framing far fewer smaller items (except where two or more are framed together) and far fewer inexpensive prints and other low-value items. Thus, whereas a couple of years ago my waste glass and board was mainly smaller than A4, I now find many larger pieces piled up in the store for much longer. As this has been (and remains as yet) a poor year for business, the loss of this business has yet to be fully compensated by an increase in larger or more prestigious jobs, and I suspect that this experience is shared by many other bespoke framers.
Mind you, it is all my fault for charging realistic prices. I never had any problem in attracting a high volume of work a few years ago when I was undercharging, and discounting, and generally bending over backwards to please everybody – including my bankers, to whom I was paying increasing amounts of loan interest!