Advice of Moulding Supply

Twin Peaks · Post by **Twin Peaks** » Tue 08 Jan, 2008 11:55 am

I know this is probably one of those 'how long is a piece of string' questions, but being new to this business, I would be interested on other framers views. When I first started, I used one particular supplier's catalogue (no names) for customers to browse. Then when they had 'finally' decided which moulding they wanted, when I came to order 'sorry that is discontinued' or 'its out of stock'. Can anyone advise on experiences with suppliers, because as a relatively new framer, I don't want to give the wrong impression to customers. Wittered on long enough now!

Post by **prospero** » Tue 08 Jan, 2008 1:10 pm

Unfortunately, the 'discontinued' thing is an all to familiar tale.

Often it's not the suppliers shortcoming. Most mouldings are made in Italy and the factory will base it's production on the whole European market. So a moulding may be very popular in Shrewsbury but if no one else is using much they won't make any more. Over the years I have seen countless really good mouldings disappear. To my mind, mouldings fall into two categories: The 'fashion' stuff which comes and goes according to comtempary tastes and the bread'n'butter traditional stuff.

Do you get regular visits from the company rep? They usually have a list of impending disco stuff. Sometimes availble on sp offer and you can often drive a good bargain if you take all the remaining stock of a line.

markw · Post by **markw** » Tue 08 Jan, 2008 1:47 pm

Discontinued stock is a problem where ever you go. The only solution to this problem is to know whats in stock - internet based catalogues should be able to do this (thats a theoretical "should" in practice they dont).

My POS software also has updated stock lists, but sadly that only tells me after the customer has made a choice that the item is out of stock. Even then all stock lists rely upon someone keeping the online list up to date - that rarely happens.

You can sometimes persuade reps to pick through chevrons and chuck out the os stuff - even just cross them out of your catalogue.

Steve N · Post by **Steve N** » Tue 08 Jan, 2008 2:10 pm

Hi Twin Peaks
I agree with prospero about style and fashion, another problem is the supplier being out of stock of mouldings, when I started framing 20 years ago, you used to have the odd moulding or mountboard out of stock, now with age of computer stock control there always seems to be more mouldings or mountboards out of stock. Or is this just me, as when we were kids the summer holidays seem to go on and on and were always sunny, but now the summers are short and wet

A very down in the dumps Steve N

Post by **prospero** » Tue 08 Jan, 2008 2:42 pm

Ah, jumpers for goalposts....George Formby still on ration.... 6d Mars Bars
impossible to eat in one go without being sick.

What gets me about todays moulding ranges is that there seems to be any amount of weird and wonderful stuff, but if you want just a simple, traditional gold moulding of decent quality you can go whistle.

I must admit to occaisionally winding up suppliers when I knew a moulding was discontinued. I'd send in an order for about 10,000ft.

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Tue 08 Jan, 2008 4:14 pm

Steve N wrote:I agree with prospero about style and fashion,

So do I! I want to get a name for doing really nice mirror frames: went to Arqadia catalogue, chose samples, tried to place order for same: discontinued, discontinued, discontinued. Similar story with Simons...

(Not dissing the suppliers here, just wish that more people had similar taste to mine. I've got a show mirror in the corridor into the gallery area. Could have sold it sixty-leven times by now, but the moulding has been discontinued. It's so stylish, and there's no way I will part with it! I've even had customers come back to see if might change my mine. Ice cubes...!

)

The way that I tend to go when working from catalogues is to help the customer to choose a selection of mouldings, and then advise that I will request samples from the supplier so that they can make sure that they are happy with the finish before confirming the order. I also add the caveat that, on occasion, it is possible that a line may be discontinued. At least with this approach, it helps to lessen the possibility of the customer "setting their heart on" a particular moulding, and educates the customer about the framer's supplier realities without impacting on how the customer perceive's one as "knowing one's stuff"!

SteveN wrote:... is this just me, as when we were kids the summer holidays seem to go on and on and were always sunny, but now the summers are short and wet

The summers were definitely longer (school hols - we had it made and didn't know it!), but if it's any comfort, Steve, I spent all my childhood summers here, and they were just as wet.