The Framers Forum

I'm looking for advice on how to price frames for photographers.

I've been approached by a local photographer with a view to supplying him with frames and I was wondering how to go about pricing them.
Just as an example, A+T 3543-4140. £2.17 perM ex vat.
With my pricing software, ( BBEst, waste set at 25%), a 20"x16" frame comes up at £24.50, and standard float glass £6.40. £30.90 ex vat.

Allowing 2.5M for the moulding and 1 sheet of 20x16 from Lion's pre packed sheets thats around £6.50 for the moulding and £2.10 for the glass. Round that up to £10 to allow for a back board, d-rings etc makes up my cost without adding in time.

Naturally the obvious answer is "get as much as you can", but where should I be pitching in between the cost to myself and the suggested BBest price to give both myself and the photographer a good deal. Is cost x 2 in the ball park?

Just interested in how the framers on here going around costing this sort of work up?


Thankyou in advance for any advice and suggestions

Nige

pricing for photographers is very difficult. Some allow normal price less say 10% others want much bigger discounts, but there is always the issue that they want to do it themselves. I thought local artists were difficult but photographers are worse.

We produced a small range of samples for one photographer which were to be his "elite range" Still waiting for the first order and that was over a year ago.

I think you need to know your man/woman and see their motivation and price accordingly. The price will never be right though

You have not said who is mounting the photo. If you are just supplying the frame as a ready made then the margin can be dropped providing you are happy to go along that route.

Again if it is a stock moulding you might be happy with a lower margin on the basis you could be getting the advantage of buying in pack/bulk quantities.

I tend to offer photographers a limited range of mouldings and mounts from my stock ranges. Give them too much choice and before long they become a competitor as they can then take in bespoke work that would have come to you.

The moulding you mention is a fairly generic one that is stocked by a lot of suppliers

Had a quick look on my pricing system this a.m. and my retail for that frame would be £43.53. Trade price negiotiable dependent on quantity, potential future business and if sold as ready made or including mounting, finishing etc.

I can get exactly that moulding at around £1 per metre but I would have to take a minimum of 60m.

Be careful, it's very easy to get caught on these sort of deals. Make sure that the order quantities make sense for the discount given and double check all your material prices, pack quanities and delivery charges, before quoting a price.

Try to avoid having your profit on the job tied up in your left over materials, as this happens very easily. Also make sure that you know how long it will take for the customer to collect and settle the bill.

I have a couple of local photographers I make frames for. I can't say that it's a great earner, but one buys framers in batches of one size and the other just buys as and when. The "as and when" customer gets a generic trade discount of 25%, but with my normal mark up, I still get a fairly good profit.

I would not want to be too dependant upon any trade customers at all. Trade customers have no loyalities!

actually, my business is all for photographers

it can be very very profitalbe

but

dont take my word for it go look at some of the big labs that produce stuff for photographers, just go to focus on imaging in the nec and see how massive the stands from these labs are and how many there are

It came to £40.80 on my Estlite pricing, full custom framing (me putting photo in) discounted if they want as Ready made. My way of working with photographers is price as per retail, and give them discounts for quantity, the more work they give me the better the price, also to work to pre-arranged sizes, so that not every photo is different size.

Gave one photographer a quote once ( or rather he told me what he was going to pay) he had a range of standard sizes (12"x16" up to 24"x30") with a range of about eight different mouldings from Arqadia (the price difference across the range was around £5.50 per metre) all were ready mades. Well it turns out that he paid his current supplier a set price per size of frame, no matter what the moulding was, I could only reach the price he wanted to pay by using only the cheapest moulding he used, it turns out he was only spending around £250.00 per month, told him that the prices he wanted to pay, he would have to commit to double that amount a month, didn't hear from him again

I supply a local photographer with multi window frames and this accounts for about half of my business.
4 basic frame sizes. 16*20, 10*24 at £30 each and 20*24, 13*34 at £45 each. (no VAT as not reg'd)

All I supply is the frame from a selection of around 10 mouldings, typical Lion L1534 and others at similar price level, a backboard and a single mount, invariably Colourmount C375, with up to 5 apertures. Frames are supplied with a Lion CWH1 hanger and closed with flexi tabs, no other finishing and edge wrapped with handy wrap for protection during delivery (by me). Photo mounting is done by the photo studio.

I achieve an average mark up of around 3 times my bare material cost. My time inputs are not taken into account but are fairly minimal as I can get these frames turned out quite quickly even cutting the multi window mounts manually.

We offer options on other frames as an upgrade as well as double mounts etc etc at pre-agreed extra pricing.

Hope this helps

If he accounts for half your buisness what is the plan for the day he fails to show up?

I would be scared to have half of my turnover with one customer. That would worry me a lot!

My local framer gives me no discount at all.

In saying that I sell mainly canvas and MDF / Acrylic blocks. I only make 10% of my own frames but now do all my own mounting and I created a hand finished range that I sell for a premium and it's going well.

Thankyou very much for all the replies and insight into this.

Seems that there are many and varied ways of going about this particular aspect of the business, and it was very interesting to see replies from both sides of the fence.
Best get my best selling/negotiating head on when I meet up with the photographer in a couple of days!

All the best,
Nige

Not your average framer wrote:I would be scared to have half of my turnover with one customer. That would worry me a lot!

Does it sound better if I say I have doubled my turnover as a result of developing an excellent relationship with this customer

You are of course quite right but as I'm retired from a previous life and run a small scale operation.......I'm happy