Supplier Stock Problems

[Not your average framer]

I have about 650 sheets of mountboard including Nielsen Bainbridge, Arquadia, Colourmount, Daler, Crescent and Tru-Vue (Miller). I can usually find something to suit almost anything from stock, although I still need to the usual white, creams and nuetrals on a regular basis.

Over time I am trying to reduce my stock and standardise on a mix of Arqadia, Colourmount and to a lesser extent Daler. These days I only order Nielsen Bainbridge Artcare boards as I need them, but no longer direct from NB, as I find that their distributors appear to be better stocked than NB.

My default mountboard is usually Arqadia, unless I need a colour which is not in their range. This is based upon availability, quality and cost. My default used to be NB, but although I really like their boards and range of colours, I could not rely upon them for availability from stock.

I fairness to NB, their artcare range is excellent both for quality and the enormous range of colours to chose from.

[Roboframer]

I very very rarely get stock problems with Nielsen, or any other problems come to that, and they win over Arqadia for me (apart from being better quality/bigger range/more finishes) by selling single sheets.

Maybe single Arqadia sheets are available via a distributor but if there's any discount to be had, dealing direct has to be best? Putting your eggs in as few baskets as possible also helps.

I think being on their van route is also a winner - I rarely have to use their carrier (TNT) but when I do THAT'S when I get problems.

Just one gripe with artcare boards - washlines.

[Jonny2morsos]

I think being on their van route is also a winner - I rarely have to use their carrier (TNT) but when I do THAT'S when I get problems.

(As previously posted) - you are more than twice the distance away from NB than me and a lot more who are nearer still but on their van route!

[Roboframer]

They are established van routes with big customers along them, (I'm a 'category B' don't you know) switching those customers to carriers would have lost them a lot of business, so they kept some sort of distribution centre in London and deliver to it on their own lorry overnight from Diss, must be a slick operation because all that's changed for me is that I used to be able to order by Tuesday 1 pm latest for the Wednesday van and now it's midday, but I can push it later via my rep .... unless I make a habit of it I suppose.

In time they may well establish van routes more local to Diss, but time is what it will take and they didn't move there from London because of the amount of framers local to Diss. They need enough accounts, spending enough to make it worth their while - how many framers are there around that would get them excited or already have?

[stcstc]

out of 400 mouldings and 150 colours of board, in say a month how many would get used and have to be re ordered?

robo, would you be able to find all of them easy enough?

i have a PT framer who used to work in another framing shop, he was telling me he sometimes had to spend 40 mins looking for mouldings and stuff

[Roboframer]

Well, maybe I could take the samples off the wall as the stock depletes, or maybe not, plus although I'd only be showing what's in stock, someone may make an order taking more than I have, which happens anyway - it would mean less ordering though.

As for finding it - each sample has a location written on it and that is put on the order - e.g. '3/4' tells me area 3 (of 5 sets of shelves) 4th shelf down. Don't need it most of the time though.

[Graysalchemy]

A I have said on many occasion I am a commercial framer I don't deal with Mrs Jones and her tapestries . I order my mount board in quantity and get very good discounts for doing so.

Now I thought I carried a lot of dead stock but some of you seem to be past masters at tying up you profits in stock.

When I did have a retail business I probably had 150 mouldings on the board and about 50 mount boards. What happened was I never had quite enough of the moulding I wanted or it was damaged so I would have to order the odd length and it was always needed urgently so I had to put 4 lengths on an over night. Worse still I would have Simmons mouldings, Larson Juhl (back in the day when you had a larson rep), Arqadia, Mainline and Renaisance mouldings, so I would end up with a lot of small orders below carriage paid. I found that it wasn't a cost effective way of doing business, and so when the opportunity arose I ditched the retail and concentrated on the commercial work. Now I buy most of my moulding in case quantities, 70% of my business goes to arqadia with the rest split between Simons, Mainline (for plastic) and a bit of Lion. Now because of that I get rewarded with good discounts from arqadia improving my profitability.

Now if a commercial client wants a moulding they can have anything that Arqadia or Simons have. However these clients usually have 4 -5 pictures in a particular moulding so I will use up a pack quantity. Most of it is normally repeat business so they want the same again and again.I have once been caught out with this as I had to order 2000m of a plastic moulding which arqadia had dropped but would order for me from the far east, so I ordered it 8 weeks in advance. However no sooner had it arrived the pub company decided they were pulling the plug on that brand and i was left high and dry with a moulding no use to man nor beast and one which I could not return to arqadia.

With respect to mount colour I tend to do quite clean classic designs using two thickness's of board together or wooden slips in stead of using accent colours and if you only show them hayseed then hayseed it is . If I do have to chose colours (occasionally I have to use coloured mounts for certain projects) I always use arqadia as I can tag it onto a normal stock order and still get good discounts.

I suppose it is a balance between having a good range so that you become a destination retailer where people know that you will have something and not having so much that you end up with a lot of dead stock. And with framing being more and more a design led product then the later is always a reality.

[stcstc]

ah cool robo

so does stock of all those mouldings get used quickly, say in a month or so, or does stuff sit there for months on end before being used

same with mountboard, do colours all get used quickly?

or is it easier to just order stuff like some of the mountboard as ya need it?

i tend to order in stuff i need as can generally get in a couple of days, means stuff doesnt get damaged and my supplier is paying for storing it not me.

[Roboframer]

Months? Try Years!

Only being able to buy in pack quantities from Arqadia, taking advantage of promotions and discounts, buying more than I need in anticipation of flaws/damage .... etc, is why I have so much stock. Not recommending it or anything.

One shelf area is totally full of Nielsen discontinued stuff - really good quality stuff that I bought at least 30m of each at a maximum of 25p per foot. Two footbal shirts later and I was already quids in!

Mountboard is different and I care less about it - I only order packs of the faster-moving stuff and all the rest in singles or twos.

[stcstc]

ah ok, sorry i misunderstood, i thought you were saying you maintained stock of 400 mouldings and 200 mountboards

was thinking having all that as stock on the off chance seems like a lot of cash in the stock room

[Graysalchemy]

I bet you have a lot of capital tied up in depreciating stock. Even if you business is very profitable (which I hope it is) It could be more so with a reduced stock holding and the best way to do that is to reduce the range you stock/show.

When you choose frames with people what percentage of you range do you actually use on a regular basis? Also how much time is spent with customers in the consultation process, because there is so much choice?

We have very differing business and I am not trying to knock you for it, just passing comment made from my own experiences of this business both high street and commercial.

Cheers

Alistair

[Not your average framer]

I'm running down a lot of my existing stock and introducing more mouldings from various suppliers, which I aim to keep permanently in stock.

This should improve profitability / cashfow and where customers choose these mouldings it should result in a faster service. As some of my favorite mouldings are becoming significantly more expensive, or discontinued, it time for a new plan.

As I like to offer stacked mouldings in both hand finished and factory finished combinations, some discontinuations and significant price increases have stopped some of my favorite combinations and I therefore need to try out some new ideas!

All things considered a good shake up, every now and then is usually good for business, so I'm having a major sort out.

[Graysalchemy]

I'm running down a lot of my existing stock and introducing more mouldings from various suppliers

Consider putting you business with one supplier for most of your purchases you will be able to negotiate better terms and increase profitability. I achieve probably the maximum the rep can give me with one supplier which is quite significant, but then I have increased my turnover with them significantly as well. It also means that it will be easier to make up a carriage paid order on a regular basis and thus reduce your stock holding.

The downside to this is putting all your eggs in one basket with regards to out of stocks and quality issues but I must say that my main supplier tends to be very good.

[lionpfs]

Hi all

I noticed this thread and did a bit of investigating about the issues Framie mentioned back at the beginning, I hope you don’t mind.

It seems that the supplier told us they were despatching the moulding on a certain date, but it wasn’t on the delivery when it arrived. At this point we should have got in touch with everyone who had an outstanding order, and I apologise that we did not. We have reinforced the need to do this with the people responsible, and used your comments to help them understand the issue from the customer’s perspective. I do understand the frustration and inconvenience this will have caused you and your customer.

Secondly - the low stock warnings – appear when our stock of a product drops below the level at which we need to reorder from our supplier. This level varies widely from product to product, as it depends on both sales volume and lead time. We do it this way, rather than having a fixed level for low stock, because 50m of moulding constitutes relatively little stock; 50 Morsos is quite a lot.

We are on the point of launching a new version of our website, which will initially have the same stock level system – but with a key improvement, in that the stock levels at our Lion South branch will no longer be taken into account. This has been the cause of some ‘false positives’ on stock levels, which we know has been very frustrating for customers, as well as for us. In the longer term, we are looking at the possibility of making actual stock levels visible on moulding and mountboards, since we realise that this information can be critical to framers.

Finally, we’re setting up a system to notify customers when mouldings are marked for deletion. If you email seb@lionpic.co.uk, he can sign you up.

Hope this helps.

Nicola

[Jonny2morsos]

Getting back to supplier problems.

I just had a phone call from one of the wholesalers we use to say they are no longer covering our area. Not a huge deal as I don't use them that much except for single sheet Arqadia mountboard and single length Arqadia moulding.

I am, happy ordering packs of popular colour mount board but I don't want 5 sheets of Lime Green!

So looks like I will be putting out the Daler samples my other wholesaler just supplied me with.

[SPF]

Good and welcome news Nicola.

[Not your average framer]

Consider putting you business with one supplier

Hi Allistair,

Unfortunately that's not an option for me as I can't get everything that I want from only one supplier.

Now if a supplier was to create ranges of moulding where more of them co-ordinate and neatly stack together to make enormous frames using cheaply priced mouldings, then that would be different.

Also, it is not very easy for a framer specialising in hand finished frames to operate with only one moulding supplier. It's just not practical!

[Graysalchemy]

Point taken hand finished frames does require a varied source to get everything you need. Mind you once you have them a couple of dozen profiles would give you an infinte range.

[Roboframer]

I bet you have a lot of capital tied up in depreciating stock. Even if you business is very profitable (which I hope it is) It could be more so with a reduced stock holding and the best way to do that is to reduce the range you stock/show.

I wish I could show more! (and I'm working on the stock) The stock isn't all depreciating though, a lot of it is already paid for in many ways, like the discontinued Nielsen load I mentioned. Also it's all still in fashion and mostly still available; so I can charge 2011 prices for stuff I bought in (e.g.) 2005, so in a way it's an investment - weird way to look at it, but that's me!

Also there's a fair bit of plainwoods in that 40% in stock and although I may have about 100 finished samples on display, they're from only about 15 different unfinished profiles and they move very well.

When you choose frames with people what percentage of you range do you actually use on a regular basis? Also how much time is spent with customers in the consultation process, because there is so much choice?

On a regular basis the % is quite low - (how does it go "80% of profit comes from 20% of stock" - the 80-20 rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle )? metal frames for example are not that popular (but I don't stock any - chop service) and nor are decorative and wider profiles that suit canvasses etc, but many are chosen from 'ranges' such as Larson Juhl or Nielsen exclusive and I show many of them. Now and again I'll look at the dustiest profiles within those and chuck them, but usually to make space for new ranges I rarely take more than 15 mins to take a single order, the choice is quickly narrowed down, sometimes of course you get the totally indecisive person and can't keep control.

I increased my stock today in a way I often do - an on-line Arqadia order came to only £73, so it's either pay carriage or up the order, so I made a pack (that I only needed half of anyway) to 2 packs, pushing the order up to £96 - £1 over carriage paid. It's popular at the mo'. Could also have done it with a plainwood or even foam board.

As I have said on many occasions I am a commercial framer

No way Must have missed that.

[Graysalchemy]

You see we can have constructive banter

I nearly took a photo of my stock but I was too embarased, but then I have an excuse.........

By the way did I tell you I am a commercial framer

Cheers

Alistair