In Your Honest Opinion

[Mrs.B]

I need some Grumbler opinions. Came to the right place, didn't I?!
Lady stops in my shop on Monday with two HL frames and wants to know how long it would take for me to cut two mats for her. I says, "depends, are you particular about the color? I order on Wednesdays, truck comes on Friday if I don't have what you want here." She wants light green, I have two sheets, I quote her a price, she says okay and we're in business.
She comes back on Tuesday to pick up the mats and wants to know if I can cut three more. But I don't have the color (light green). She asks if I would cut them if she goes to HL and buys the matboard. I'm okay with that but the price is the same. She's okay with that to.
She comes in Wednesday with her FOUR sheets of HL matboard, burgundy and hunter!!?? Guess they didn't have light green either. Now we're up to eight mats, four 12x36 with 3 openings, four 24x36 with 6 openings
So am I right to charge her the same amount even if she brought in the matboard? Also, I wonder if she's been keeping a running total because this is now becoming a pretty good job for me.
I'm going out on a limb here and tell you all how much I'm charging her. I really do want some honest opinions. $330. Am I over charging her or leaving money on the table?

[j Paul]

If that is your regular price, then I say your price is what it is! The only thing that would worry me, is you say you hope your customer is keeping a running total. That may be a recipe for disaster. I think you should have kept her up to date in writing along the way.

My price on B8489 would be around $250. for what it's worth.

[FramerDave]

If you're making enough money to fairly compensate you for your time, and make some profit, and your customer is satisfied with the product and price, you're charginf her the correct amount.

Your pricing works out to something like $10 per opening, which is very fair, especially if you can crank them out on the Wizard.

[Dave]

I'm at $ 377.98 using B8489 for the eight mats and cutting by hand. I would charge the same if a customer brought in their own board because if I do make a mistake I'd have to scramble to get the board right away too. Using their board I would give them the fallouts if they wanted them.

I would definately have gotten at least a deposit on the entire order before cutting a single mat.

[Matoaka]

This may be "apples and oranges", but a customer in our shop would pay $300.25 for the same order. We also charge the customer the same price, regardless of where the mat comes from.

[Sherry Lee]

Much closer to Dave's number than Paul's.

[Jerry Ervin]

OUCH!

Sounds like I'm the one 'leaving money on the table'. I would have made the cuts on the Wizard for 10 bucks a mat or $80 while the customer waited if I wasn't too busy. They supplied the matboard right? I got nothing in it but a little time.

Maybe I need to re-think that.

[Paul N]

Much closer to Dave's numbers too (plus another $20, to be exact...)

[PaulSF]

I'm pretty much where Dave is. I might consider a modest discount because customer is supplying matboard, and I don't have to shell out the $5/mat.

Now, if it was another framer, and not a direct competitor, and they wanted you to cut a mat for them on your CMC, would you charge for this? Or would this count as professional courtesy?

[Dave]

Paul, I don't have a CMC, but if I did I would charge as my outsource does on their CMC. I believe it would be .15 UI + 2.50 for each additional opening.

Professional courtesy to me means wholesale pricing.

[Mrs.B]

Well, she just picked up the mats and was very pleased, paid me what I was asking without blinkin' an eye! Even brought in four photos she wanted to have restored. I did give her a little discount because she brought in the matboard. I don't have a CMC either, and I felt I'd earned what I was asking, just wanted some feedback. Thanks Grumblers.
I'm closing the store early. Gonna stop at the store for some Coors on way home and then I'm going to start painting. It does'nt get dark here until 10 p.m. Should get alot done.......maybe, if I try......

[Bob Carter]

Suppose most said your prices were high (my opinion)

Yet, the client willingly paid. Who is right?

The key is to have a measureable and moderate level of resistance

If the next several customers balk; that's another answer

Pricing is all local and should be as removed from opinion as possible

To make $300 on this order would have us sending a limo to pick her up for the next order

[PaulSF]

Well, I think your lady's sister just called me!! She has an 18x24 readymade frame, a 32x40 matboard, and a 16x22 poster. So what would it cost me to cut the mat for her? And while I'm trying to put all the information into my POS to give her an estimate, she's pestering me with questions. Please let me answer one question before you demand answers to further questions, thank you. So I come up with a price of about $25 to cut the mat for her. And she seems shocked!! What would it cost if she bought the matboard from me? The same. Even more shocked. So I might have casually mentioned that I have a $13000 computerized mat cutter and the expertise to do it right (don't laff, all youse!!).

Then she wanted to know what my mats cost. So I start to say it depends on the mats, but she interrupts and says she knows that, so what do my mats cost? Like I was trying to say, anywhere from $25 to $900, depending on whether the mat is handwrapped with fabric, or embellished with French lines, etc.

Oh, and I bet her poster will look FABULOUS with that one inch mat border!

[danny boy]

Well done Mrs. B, well done.
The customer is happy because her need is filled.
You are happy because you earned the business, and from the sounds of things she is having you do even more work.

Funny she went with different colors of mat, paid for them somewhere else when you could have met her demand for the alternative colors and still cut them like normal.

You earned your money and both of you are happy.
win win

[Elaine]

I work with the local conservators and cut their specialty mats - mostly ovals. I charge $15 per cut and they supply the mats. Their special ovals are usually 3 cuts. They feel it is well worth it. Takes me no time at all to set up on the wizard.

[Dave]

Well said, danny boy! The pricing was obviously appropriate.

[BUDDY]

If I may i 'd like to make a few observations and opinions with the realization that I am nolonger a framer.

First it isn't often but this time Bob Carter and I agree on what is a fair price ( even if privately) As a consumer and with a history of what consummers in my area would have said in the past that is HIGH and while I never had access to a LIMO i would have done everything I could to get and keep that work coming.

I also now realize my shop was in the wrong geographical area. I don't know any customers that would agree to $330 for Even 9-10 BIG multi-opening mats but especially if they supplied the Matting.

Questions: What is your charge for additional openings, and shouldn't that be what the priceing reflected + some addition for no material purchase? Could you make some sort of agreement that you weren't responsible for errors in cuts? If the customer had you supply one mat and cut one of their's of the same size and number of openings ,would you charge the same and how do you explain their being the same? Finally were all these multy openings simple lay outs or where any design challenges?

It has been a few years and i was much lower than most of you ( due to what the market would bare and what I felt fair) but I hardly ever got many complete Frame jobs that cost $300 + and I'd bet the vast majority of my customers would have walked if i said $330 for matting alone. But those where Large and multi opened and if I supplied the material might be higher than most would expect but with no material COG IMHO I am telling them my cuts are what they are paying for and I wouldn't let them see what i did especially if I used a CMC or they might wonder why.

But as was said the customer was happy and you got a referral and they were pleased and you seemed to be also so maybe all my comments just prove why i no longer Frame or should have ever.

In a nut shell follow Jay H's advise "CARRY ON".
BUDDY

[Dave]

...Questions: What is your charge for additional openings, and shouldn't that be what the priceing reflected + some addition for no material purchase? Could you make some sort of agreement that you weren't responsible for errors in cuts? If the customer had you supply one mat and cut one of their's of the same size and number of openings ,would you charge the same and how do you explain their being the same? Finally were all these multy openings simple lay outs or where any design challenges? ...BUDDY

Buddy ...I charge $ 5.50 for additional rectangular openings which, again, I cut by hand. The major cost in these mats is the labor. If I had a CMC, I would still have to account for my overhead and CMC investment cost. Although, even after saying that, if I did have a CMC, I would probably have allowed a bit of a price break because these types of mats are obviously much easier to cut on a CMC with little chance of error.

Sure, the board is minimal as far as COGS, but if I did have an overcut or there was a blemish on the board or some other malady, I would have to scramble to pull in more board. Therefore I don't think I would give any incentive to a customer running to the BB to buy matboard.

As far as not being responsible for any errors ...??? If you screwed up in cutting the mat what would you say to the customer? This is how it is ...take it or leave it? They come to a professional for professional results and they have a right to expect the mat to be up to par.

[Bob Carter]

Hey Buddy-Had you agreed with me more often you might still be in biz (LOL)

I think it's grand that she got paid what she did. And, like I said, if I had a a customer like that one, I would send a limo to pick her up

Let's not forget: Consumers have a vote in this arrangement and my "honest opinion" is that most consumers would balk at that price

If I said "I sold a lite of 24x36 reg glass for $50" would I be getting congratulations?

I must say that if I thought I could get $10 per opening, I would get rid of my inventory and just go into the mat cutting business

I don't think Ms B did anything wrong; in our market that might be a tad high. I am certain that many framers here would have provided the board and all for under her price

That's my honest opinion based upon the fact that we do pretty consistent shopping and market research

The not often asked question might well be "How does that price stack up in her own market?"

[Jerry Ervin]

Hey Buddy-Had you agreed with me more often you might still be in biz (LOL)




Only if your advice was to move the shop out of Hurricane Katrina's path.

I'll bet dollars to dough nuts that Buddy would have been some tough competition to any of us.

He did great designs with hand carving and his prices were more than fair.

I'm just gigging you Bob.

[PaulSF]

Keep in mind, that's $40 per mat, each mat with multiple openings. I would say that $40 to professionally cut a multi-opening mat is fair. And this is why it's a fair price -- what else is the customer going to do? Is she going to lay that matboard out on her dining room table and cut 6 openings with a steak knife?

If I take a sheet of leather to a cobbler and ask him to make me a pair of shoes out of it, is $80 a fair price? That's what I would end up paying at Rockport.

[Bob Carter]

Hey Jerry-And I'm just playing with Buddy, but a lot of framers in that region are back, up and running. I'm not blaming Buddy for anything and I'm sure he was a skilled framer

And Paul, that's a great point about the cobbler. I'm sure that most consumers would rather just buy a new pair of shoes, too and end up thinking his prices too high.

I'm not suggesting that her prices are substantiated; I am suggesting that most consumers might think otherwise and look elsewhere

Same as Rockports

[Paul N]

I like PaulSF's leather / shoe analogy.

Next time someone asks why framing is "expensive". Tell them to look at their shoes and ask them how much did the leather cost compared to the price of the shoe.

Or glasses, hey, it's only sand (or plastic)!

[Bob Carter]

Guys- NASA can justify 50 ways to Sunday why a Toilet seat for the space shuttle should cost $300

To the taxpayer, we all think it stinks

That's all I'm saying

Unless, of course, you think the price for a gallon of gas is okay

Just because someone paid it....

[PaulSF]

You try to make a toilet work in zero gravity!

[BUDDY]

If I had moved my shop to where Bob and others were getting those better prices that my Market and research wouldn't substaniate ( even before Katrina)maybe I would be still framing and for a couple of reasons. which is sort of one of the caveats I gave about how much rent to pay.

Still I agree that most of my former customers would have walked/Balked at those prices regardless of how fair and how much risk Imay have taken.

Still on another example of the parts costing more than the whole, when I was employed at GM we had a 90 day return system where a dealer could returne a prtin of their monthly restock order and the cost of the parts far exceede wht you could buy a assembeled car for . But that door swung both ways . We almost always had to scrap the returns since the ones and twos of an item weren't worth returning to source for the shipping and handling and we'd regualrlySCRAP them for the metal cost.Until we found the scrap yard was not destroying them and reselling them at discount prices, and the Government got involved.

IMO that sounds vaguely familar to what I found out someone like myself could do with a Dexter and an exacto knife and some ready made frames.( see "what I am left with" thread) But point being I know a lot of emenently more talented Artist than myself who with the right tools ( limited though they may be) can do some very nice work with just blank mats from any BB or whom ever. Maybe some of us have too lofty a Value of our skills and abilities when EQUIPMENT makes most of the differance, just knowing how to use it is all that is lacking.Does that sound like what we were telling some one about how much to budget and whether desire and dtermination could make upfor the lack of some of it?

BUDDY