"Just In Time" Delivery of moulding, ... not quite : (

[Bagpuss]

Hi,
I have a workshop at home, customers ring up, we agree a time for them to pop round, they look at my carousel of chevrons and choose a moulding they like. More often than not, I will place an order for the moulding from Simons, sometimes Lion and it turns up the next day I will normally leave it a week to lump together other orders as well.

Earlier in the week a customer chose an ornate moulding from the Simons brochure for a couple of canvases I was about to stretch, when I'd placed the order along with half a dozen other mouldings, the ornate moulding was the only one out of stock and when I queried it I was told it wouldn't be in stock for 6-8 weeks I then had to get in touch with the customer, suggesting an alternative from Simons that I knew was in stock and a revised quote for the job, she's going to call me back.

I was wondering how Forum members handle ordering of mouldings ?, I don't really carry a lot of stock, I do have some of the more popular mouldings but the turn around from Simons/Lion has been so good, I have tended to order as and when required ( Just In time ). A couple of occassions recently I've come unstuck, I guess Simons could be carrying less stock these days.

When a customer chooses a moulding should I ask them to choose a backup one in case or should I ring the Supplier soon after to see if they have it in stock and call the customer back if there's going to be a delay.?
Why can't things just be straight forward ......

And to cap it all I knocked my lovely DAB radio off the Morso this morning and smashed it to pieces, perhaps that wasn't the best place to put it ...
Bagpuss/Adam

[Roboframer]

Sometimes it's best to ring the supplier while the customer is still with you, that's what I do if in situations such as having to meet a deadline or the customer has travelled a long way etc.

But sometimes even that does not work as their computer is a few minutes behind or something.

[Jonny2morsos]

Where possible I like to have more than one source for a moulding and if you look at say the Simons and Arqadia cataloges you will note a lot of common mouldings. Also there are smaller wholesalers who supply mouldings from both of these or get them direct from the same source and it is worth checking what they offer.

The wholesaler I use keeps one range of mouldings in stock because they know Simons and Arqadia frequently run out of stock and they pick up orders for those mouldings at that time.

This can be an awkward time for moulding supply because the european factories are now closing down for their summer holidays and won't be shipping product again until late Aug/early Sept.

What is the moulding you require? Post it here because a forum member may have some stock they can let you have or may know an alternative source.

[topbrand]

Hi,I know the problem well but now I have changed direction slightly after a visit to USA. I was in a very busy framing shop and noticed they only had about 40 mouldings to choose from all in stock. And they only had 18 yes 18 different mounts. I now have 55 mouldings half plastic and 25 mounts and manage. I buy in box quantaties and payy less also orders over £200 free carriage. The result is very fast turnaround of work usually two days, customer pleased with fast turn round and increase of profit.

Hope this helps Dougie

[Steve N]

I find that it's "part & parcel" of this business, for the last 2 months I have been trying to order 402 167 000 from Arqadia, it's out of stock, when I ask when they expect it back in stock, they give me a date, each time the date is getting longer, lucky I still have some in stock, so I'm very choosy about which frames to use it on. But quite a lot of the mouldings I stock are available from other suppliers.

[Roboframer]

for the last 2 months I have been trying to order 402 167 000 from Arqadia, it's out of stock, when I ask when they expect it back in stock, they give me a date, each time the date is getting longer.

This is sometimes due to people putting mouldings on back order and the whole lot is spoken for before it arrives.

But that moulding, or very very similar, a thin black cushion, is available from other suppliers.

[simons rep]

Hi Bagpuss,

Most ornate mouldings come from the far east and at present the far east are having a tough time. Not making a great deal so having had to lay people off!! This in then a knock on effect when the work comes in they are slightly slower as they do not want to employ again so quickly to get caught out again.

If they do not have a full container to send then it will just sit on the water and wait to get filled. This can take weeks. Unfortunately of late this is happening and it then has a knock on effect to the suppliers through to the customer. I agreeyou should have a better date given but sometimes this is just putting your finger in the air and seeing which way the wind blows, so to speak.

Simons have made a concious decision and stayed in Europe to buy alot of there mouldings due to this situation, but again Italy shut down for the whole of August which in itself is pain. You can never predict a moulding, it may be a great seller for you and not so good for someone else. Always a tough call. You could argue after a company going for a 103yrs and being in the moulding trade 40 odd yrs they should have an idea, but truth be known it is never the same each year.

I know this does not help your situation but hopefully a little explaination ( that you should of been told by the girls on the phone ) ten you can understand.

Please give the code of the moulding and i will do my upmost to give you a more accurate date, if it is not too late!!

Best Regards

Stewart Cawte

[robbiez]

We buy the majority of our mouldings from Arqadia. You can check stock on the Arqadia website for the moulding.
I run a simple program on my website that opens up Arqadia's product pages for the 500 different mouldings we use. I can then quickly check stock of every moulding we offer and note any out of stock ones. I do this 2-3 times a week and it only takes 5 minutes - you need to leave the computer alone for 10 minutes while it loads all the pages.

You could also do this with mainlne as they have a stock indicator on their website.

[Tim]

How many of your customers buy mouldings from catalogues.........and do you actually even show them the catalogues?

My customers buy mouldings based on what's on my wall. What's on my wall is what I have in stock. It didn't take me long to realise that whilst there may be 2 gazillion gold leaf mouldings on the market, most customers will buy based on recommendation, and it's you that's providing the recommendation. So - have a good story lined up for each moulding you have on your wall, and Robert is one's father's brother.

You can also limit your exposure to mountboard colours this way too - though there's much less choice of mountboard colour than there is on moulding design, and they're available from more sources....

Just my 2pth

T

[Nigel Nobody]

Hi,I know the problem well but now I have changed direction slightly after a visit to USA. I was in a very busy framing shop and noticed they only had about 40 mouldings to choose from all in stock. And they only had 18 yes 18 different mounts.

Dougie,
This shop was an extremely rare one in USA. I have visited a few myself and have seen photos of sample walls on websites that contain hundreds and some have more than a thousand moulding samples. Many USA frameshops have three or more brands of mats and a number of different types in each brand. They often have double and triple deck matboard sample racks, and several of them to display all the corners.

The shop you were in was certainly not typical of US frameshops!

I wouldn't want to only offer my customers a small range as you stated as it would mean compromising way too many frame designs!

I keep around 400-500 moulding samples on display. I keep small quantities of around 150 mouldings in stock and buy chops in many others. My mat samples include the entire range of Bainbridge Alphamat and Alpharag as well as Peterboro Conservation. I keep no samples of mats that are not conservation, but sell a handful of those each year.

Most of my suppliers can get supplies to me in one or two days if the items are in stock, which is not always the case lately.

[Bagpuss]

Thank you to everyone who told me how they manage their stock and thanks to Stewart from Simons for the explaination about moulding supplies from overseas, it's not something I have thought of before , there's a bit more to manufacture and supply of these mouldings than you'd imagine, I just thought of it coming over in the back of a lorry !

I'm just going to have to go through the learning curve I think, I think I'm sailing a bit too close to the wind with regards to holding stock, perhaps I need to bite the bullet and hold more stock

with thanks,
Adam/Bagpuss

[Dermot]

Pick about 4 or 5 mouldings that you like and add a small amount (a pack of each) for your stock the next time you place a moulding order for a frame you need to make and do it each time you need to order a moulding over the next year or so, by the end of the year even if you only place an order every month you could have up to 60 mouldings in stock, it's a reasonably painless way to build up a stock.

Of the 60 mouldings you may find that about 10 or 12 of them you will find very to sell and to produce frames (read quick to make a frame from) they could then become your “value line” (read save the sale) which you could offer “special” (read cheap) pricing on if you started to buy them in box (bulk) quantities, most suppliers will give you a very good break on pricing once you start to give them some volume on a range of mouldings.