Sex toy sales are up over 100% in Norway and Denmark during March

[Keith Hewitt]

I knew that would get your attention ! Seriously now, I'm thinking how can framers also benefit from the lockdown and stay home.

Millions of children are right now drawing, painting, and making images to put in their windows and around the homes. They will remember the virus when they are older, Lets get anything they have produced framed as a reminder for them and us.
I visualise a large poster in every frame shop saying

Save your child's best lockdown pictures and get them framed here when we re-open

With some examples of what kids have done, or maybe a before and after visualisation.

Who makes the poster - simple, a few distributors could make it a joint effort, and mail it out folded to all their customers to put in the frame shop windows.. If not workable by a group then let one of the nationwide distributors do it.
Is it a workable idea?
Here a few pics of what children have made. Not that you need any, they are everywhere!

[Keith Hewitt]

COME ON !

49 people have viewed this, and no a single response so far ..

Is it a workable idea?

Surely you have an opinion, lets hear it.
I am suggesting something to help grow the framers biz when normal times return.
Isn't that something all framers desire.
If you can suggest a different or better idea, then please share your thoughts

[Rainbow]

49 people have viewed this, and no a single response so far ..

Perhaps the misleading thread title hasn't been conducive. Would you put "Sex shop" above your gallery door and expect people to come in to buy a picture?

[poliopete]

Good reply Rainbow

It reminds me of a very old "Jethro" joke.

He walked in to shop in Cornwell and asked for a bunch of roses. The shopkeeper replied " we are a circumcision clinic and we don't sell roses" Jethro replied "then why have roses in your window?" the shop keeper " well, what do you suggest we display in our window"

[fusionframer]

The idea of advertising getting your childs rainbow drawings framed is a good one. This is hopefully, a once in a lifetime (hopefully longer) situation and conserving your childs rainbow drawing may not be something they consider immediately, but if they read the idea of doing it, they may well think it's worth it.

Nick

[BeatnikFraming]

I don't think it's something that will be in demand to be honest, I think once this this all over people will want to move on and get back to normal without any reminders

[Keith Hewitt]

I consider myself suitable scolded by 3 of the last 4 posters
The title was a little risqué.
When I saw the heading in the paper it got me thinking " Is there any way framers might also benefit from the lockdown"
Next time I will simply start with " An idea to take advantage of the lockdown"

Anyway it seems no one is interested in my window poster idea in every frame shop, so I will reluctantly go do some gardening and polish the car for the umpteenth time.
And stop thinking of ways to grow the wonderful world of framing

[poliopete]

Keith I am one of many who do not doubt your commitment to the framing industry The help and support you have given framers over your working lifetime is exemplary.

Please keep up the good work and keep throwing ideas in the pot for us to chew over:yes:

Peter.

[Keith Hewitt]

Now over 250 views, probably caused by my flippant heading
But nobody seems to wants to take it up and run with my idea.
Even framers seems remarkably disinterested judging by the low response.

I visualise a LARGE poster with some before and after visuals and saying

Save your child's best lockdown pictures and get them framed here when we re-open

Produced and mailed out by one of the more go ahead distributors, or maybe 2 working in cooperation?

And then most framers will have an eye catching poster for their window, showing they care to save and cherish a child's drawing / painting.
It could pull in some new customers, parents and grand parents who would otherwise just dump the child's effort, or keep it hidden for years

I ask that anyone reading this, please at least post a reply, Share your thoughts and your opinions, Would you welcome and use such a poster
Or elaborate and suggest a better alternative to somehow capitalise on the unusual times we are all experiencing.
Thanks for any replies

[Not your average framer]

I am wondering how many customers are going to want to frame somethibg that reminds them of the shut down / stay at home period. The local food stores in our small town have got more stock on their shelves than ever and people are not leaving the town to go to bigger towns to do their shopping, but shopping locally instead. This may be good for local framing businesses when the shut down is over. A lot of potential customers are going to be quite careful with their money at first and may not appreciate sales promotions that are too obvious at first, but good shop window displays should still create some potential business, although the initial response may take a little while to get going.

We are to some degree used to people buying ready made frames from big stores in the bigger towns. Well local people are doing more shopping in the local shops at the moment and some ready made frames on display in the shop windows may create some useful sales, if priced just right. This may even be a good opportunity to use up some old moulding stock, that's been hanging around to long. The locals will already know that you offer picture framing, but there's no harm in making and displaying other items as well. Your shop window displays can have a worthwhile effect on your local foot traffic. After people are allowed more freedom to go out, there will be an increase in local foot traffic and potentially the chance for some sales.

Don't forget to think of creative ways to make old stock and slow moving stock, more useful and more appealing. Use what you've got, when you can, rather than spending to buy new stock if you can. This is a good time to use some of those off cuts and bits and pieces that are just sitting around. Think about using the odd bit of paint to paint the the reveals for double mounts to use up mountboard scraps for ready made frames. Little touches like that can make items displayed in your shop windows, more eye catching and even something special. Try to make the items in your shop windows look a bit different. Different gets noticed! People don't like to be too run of the mill and like to show and express heir good taste in their homes with things that are different and special.

[vintage frames]

Maybe not a bad idea. I'd be more inclined to suggest a window display of several framed examples to show potential customers how they could all look.
There is however a small hazard for an interior design offence. These efforts are always treasured as ephemeral objects, stood loose leafed on a shelf or temporarily blue-tacked to the wall or fridge.
Framing them might be the same as offering plastic covers to protect your sofas.

[Not your average framer]

One of my shop windows has apair of very old hinged and folding wooden shutters on the inside of the windows. When hinged back and folded, these shutters fold back into recesses in the very thick old fashioned cobb walls and I will be able to display items hanging from these shutters on both sides of this window. It is with this thought in mind that I will be making multiple frames in matching set, that can be display together to form a rectangular outer profile, for the set with equal spacings between these frames. Because some of these frames will be smaller square shaped frames, I will have opportunities to use up some of my smaller off cuts of glass, mount board and backing boards, which will be helpful.

I will also at times include double mounts in some sets, again using up off cuts and will paint all of the reveals for the rear mounts, using whatever colour of paint before cutting out the aperatures and the colour of these painted mounts will increase the sense of all of these Ready made frames as being a fully matching set. I intend to price these for sale as a set and also individually as well, according to customer preferances, obviously I will have enough stock of these frames to be able to grab any individual requirements from nearby shelves. To be sucessful when selling these, I will be pricing these at attractive prices.

Before the shut down, I bought a decent volume of low priced mouldings to enable me to do this and I expect to find a few other lots of moulding left over in my existing stock. If everything goes well, I hope to be converting at least some of my existing stock back into money to keep things ticking along, while waiting for things to pick up. I am also arranging to have my shop front repainted to brighten the place up a bit. I have a good friend who is an excellent painter, who is willing to give me a good deal and I am trying to offer him some work to help during this difficult time. I am based in a small town, we all try to help one another at times like this.

I have two shop widows situated either side of the front door and one will be for very classy up market stuff and the other window will be for more easily affordable items to attract whose who want to be more careful with their money at this time. Quite a lot of my finishes tend to have at least a bit of that older looking style and I have plenty of materials, which work well for this. Some frames will be modern representations of what looks back to an older era as well, I sell plenty like this already and I am hoping that this will be a good strategy!

[Steve N]

Most of the ones I have seen are on A4 paper, so will fit a readymade A4 frame, 'Bish Bosh, Done' as a few of the comments on this forum have been saying, most people will not have the money if this goes on too long, so framing pictures will be a luxury, so the pictures could be put in scrapbooks, so maybe selling those

Don't know what Norway and Denmark has to do with it, but I know that Britain's largest Sex Toys mail order company is still sending out loads of orders, they are based here in Bath, right opposite my workshop, they only have the warehouse staff in, all other staff are working from home

[Not your average framer]

hi Steve,

How many A4 frames are you doing to a pack? I'm assuming that they would most likely be cheap and cheerful black mouldings. I'm a bit low on basic black mouldings right now, apart from some rather skinny mouldings (which are probably too skinny for A4's) and getting any might be a problem at this present time. I've not been in much of a hurry to buy it much of black mouldings, because, was not planning on doing much regarding A4 frames as they usually are something people expect to be very cheap and there might not be enough money from them to be worth the effort.

I've got various other colours of mouldings, which I don't mind using up a bit, but I was assuming that most people will be looking for A4 frames in black mouldings. I also don't do polymer mouldings at all, so if I get some black mouldings in for the A4 frames, it will be wood mouldings!

[Steve N]

I don't know at the moment, I just add a few to my cut list, but yes mainly black moulding, I'm going to be using up whatever I have, I keep a fair amount of black moulding (and white) to make my R/M's , so I'm making them most of the time, when I'm cutting glass, I cut the off cuts into standard sizes so I always have some ready to use.

[Not your average framer]

When I was working at Triton Galleries they used to have a big sale in January and used to advertise A4 frames at £1 each for the sale. I have remembered this down the years and as a result have always thought that there is too much competition for price on A4 frames and have not made much effort to sell A4 frames. So I've not much bothered with making all that many A4 ready made frames.

Chasing lowest prices is not really something that I really want to be doing. Working myself into the ground to be cheaper than somebody else, is not my idea of fun, but maybe I'll try a few and see what happens. We are living in unusual times and maybe things will be more favorable now. I'm thinking about something along the lines of buy a pack of four and save 35% based on what I would charge for only one frame.

II don't normally think like this, but these are going to be really hard times and if this is what it takes to get through this, maybe I need to do it.

[Steve N]

So I was thing of doing something like this, used what colours I have in stock, only problem with this one is the yellow is about 1.5mm deeper , so I lined up the front edges , excess is at the back

[Keith Hewitt]

Steve,

I like it
The youthful colour scheme will appeal to the younger generation, just the types we need to encourage into frame shops.

Why not show 2 pics, 1 empty, and a second with a kids painting of a rainbow. or similar virus related art work?

[Steve N]

Thanks Keith
Going have to nick a rainbow picture from someone's window, as we don't have kids or any grandkids