Presenting, displaying & promoting ready made frames

[Not your average framer]

I'm planning on making more of an effort in selling ready made frames. For some time, I have felt that this is something I could make more of, hence the subject for this thread.

Anyone got any pearls of wisdom?

[avantime]

Aim for exhibiting artists and photographers. That's what I'm looking to do again.

[Not your average framer]

Thanks Avantime,

I'm finding that the artists are quite active customers at this time, if you can offer them what they want.

I have very small premises, which I am slowly re-fitting and re-organising. Part of my new emphasis will be ready made frames with a difference. I have recently been pushing my RMF's as an alternative to normal framing for those who don't want a full price framing job or need something in a hurry.

Often I can do the whole job while they wait. I cut my waste glass, backing board and mountboard into standard sizes and have it all ready for those quick or budget priced framing jobs. I am working on a specific price list, just for this. The word is already getting around and demand is growing.

My old Keencut Dart, a small (24") mountcutter will be taken over to the shop and used to cut small mounts while my customers wait. They get a quick service at a good price, but the deal is that they can only have a budget ivory white core mountboard or whatever is in the cut to size off-cuts pile. I have a limited selection of RMF's, but intend to add some "standard" RMF mouldings so I can offer a repeatable range and make odd sizes while they wait.

Presented in the right way at a sensible price, it appears some, perhaps many, who normal buy mass produced RMF's elsewhere can be persuaded to buy mine. My RMF's cost a little more, but some local retailers are committing less space to RMF's and are not so quick to re-stock as they sell. With less staff and longer queues at the check-out, they are making it easier for me.

I've only got a limited amount of display space, so I'm trying to find the best way of displaying my stock of RMF's and ready made mounts. I'm also looking at the presentation of individual RMF's, I've bought some nice looking heavy weight paper to print my own insert sheets and this has helped as well. The only other thing is finding practical ways of explaining/promoting what I am doing and I would like to know how others are approaching this.

[Merlin]

Hi Mark
This was our RMF shelving. Before the shop refit.
Works very well, as the mounts are in the blue boxes to one side of the RMFs.
Makes life for the customer easier.

RMF Shelving

rmfs2.jpg (225.52 KiB) Viewed 5181 times

[Not your average framer]

Hi John,

Thanks for posting the photo. Something I immediately noticed with your display is accessibility. It looks very customer friendly and creates a good impact too!

Part of my difficulty is that I want customers to be able to see my RMF display from outside the shop, (to draw them in), but I don't want to sacrifice any of my small shop window display area to do this.

I have begun making new internal shop window fittings and surfaces, which will be less deep than the previous units, as I am trying to create a larger customer area within the shop. Unfortunately the current ideas for the shop windows, will not help me to acheive all my objectives and so far I am yet to solve this problem.

Have you seen the new Driftwood range from Simons yet? I'm thinking that the smaller profiles in this range at about 27 pence per foot would be good for me to stock for RMF's. Also there's a nice chunky addition to their wrap range at 50 pence per foot which I'm thinking of using for RMF's too!

Obviously I will still make RMF's from left overs too, but I think it is an advantage to offer some RMF's in standard mouldings, so that customers can match frames that they have bought with new purchases at a latter time.

[Roboframer]

Part of my difficulty is that I want customers to be able to see my RMF display from outside the shop, (to draw them in), but I don't want to sacrifice any of my small shop window display area to do this.

How about a website - a window to the world! Failing that a monitor in the window showing a slideshow of your RMF range - even I could do that!

[Not your average framer]

Hi John,

Mmmm, that's not a bad idea! I could buy a digital photo frame which runs a side show of whatever pictures you down load into it. This could be really good!

I could get a "plug-in" time switch and plug it into a 13 amp wall socket near one of my windows, so I can leave it running for a few hours during the evening after the shop is closed. I could even frame the digital photo frame for added effect.

[LeFrisp]

You may want to have a word with Avantime I bought a load of his RMF. top quality Ash and Oak with a really good finish for about the same as I could buy moulding in for. The quality is such you can have a nice margin for no effort and make a killing on offering a mount for them. Im promoting them as "hand waxed furniture grade hardwood frames". The Mitres are amazing on them and that just adds to the quality look and feel of them, . I have had some from him with just the frames only and shoved a bit of mirror in them.... Stunning

[valpendleton]

I say Merlin...I do like those blue boxes! Would you mind telling me where they are from, or did you make them yourself?

[Merlin]

Hi Val
Thank you for your kind remark.
They are left overs from Corri Corr Mk3 backing.
The depth is standard across all the boxes to fit the shelf.
The width is customised to fit the width of the mounts.
The height is supposed to be 2/3rd height of the mount.

The boxes are placed next to the RMF's.

All the edges are reinforced with 'licky sticky' paper tape and then the whole lot is
painted with our 'Corporate colour' - Tester pots from B & Q - they go a long way...

We did make the mistake originally of sticking a pricing label on each mount.
We quickly realised our mistake when a pricing restructure came along.
Peeling off over 1000 old price tags is no fun.
We now clip the mount prices to the front of the box next to the mount size information

Hope that helps

[valpendleton]

Merlin...you're a star! Thanks very much for that info. I'll definitely be making some.
Val

[Not your average framer]

painted with our 'Corporate colour' - Tester pots from B & Q

Hi John,

That's a great idea and it looks great. Thanks for the tip. I shall experiment with that one tomorrow.
Cheers,
Mark