16 x 20 mats for $1.93

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GeneWilliams

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Joined
Jun 17, 2003
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Cathedral City & Indian Wells, CA
I have a customer who is buying a large volume of 16 x 20 mats and is paying $1.93, plus $.88 for a 1X board backing. The mat is conservation quality. All the mats have one rectangular opening, all the same size. How in the h#@* is he getting them this cheap. I actually want to almost meet his price, if it makes sense moneywise. He's having them shipped from Georgia or something, so if I'm close, I can get it.

Question is, is there a cheaper conservation mat than Larson's Artique? A white mat sells under $6.00. If I sell the mat for $2.00, that's a $2.00 margin before the mats are sized or cut. (Yes I do have a CMC) If there's not a cheaper mat, who is operating at a margin that tight? It appears to be a negative margin!

Thanks

Gene Williams, CPF
Mitre & Bevel
 
I would really question the conservation mat. I had someone tell me they were getting conservation mats really cheap, turns out they were just whitecore basics. I once bought something for my husband that was already matted in "acid free" matting. It turned out to be Crescent paper mats.

You could check out Prime Art Ltd. (PAL). They are located in Cincinnati. I used to order these for the place I was working. However, I think even their 16x20 paper mats were more like 2.99.
 
I would suggest that either your customer is shading the truth somewhat in order to get a better price from you, or a distributor is cutting them using his distributor's wholesale price.

At those prices a retail framer cannot compete even with bulk purchases. Our wholesale prices are much more than what a distributor pays for his.
 
I buy Artique buy the case for $4.73 and Cresent Select for $4.80. If your paying Wizard a nickel a corner add another $.20 per mat. That's a $1.40 plus labor.
If the Qty. was great enough and all the same size,color and cut, I would match the price. I would only do it in quanities of 80 mats though.
 
At $4.73 per board, your cost is $1.40 per mat...
assume it would take 2 hours to cut the blanks, change blades every 8-10 mats, and feed the CMC and your shop time is $30 per hour, your loss would be $17.60. Even if you work like a robot, I don't think there's any profit in this one. I would pass.(I also think he's exagerating the price to bring your price down).

[ 10-07-2003, 03:32 PM: Message edited by: Maryann ]
 
Maryann, I could get 80 mats cut in about 20-30 minutes. The key is to cut 4 mats at a time then cut the outsides while the next one is in the CMC.

I agree that there are more profitable jobs, but any profit is better than no profit.

[ 10-07-2003, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: FrameMakers ]
 
This brings up a big question... Why in the world would you want to match or even come anywhere near his price?? You will be making almost no money (if any at all) on this job and that is for certain. The time you would waste on this job would be better spent on work that actually makes you money. If you are that slow and looking for work that you would consider taking this loser than maybe you need to re-evaluate your business. Please don't take offense at this but I'm serious. If you need to even consider this work than my opinion is your business is a goner already and you need to look elsewhere for work.
Not all work that comes in the door is worth doing. Sometimes you need to just congradulate the customer on their fantastic luck at finding such a great deal and wish them a good day. :rolleyes:
 
Don't forget the cost of the blades and electricity. I think it would be more profitable to panhandle on a street corner in the nation's capitol.
 
At a former job a person called and asked about volume pricing for a job and gave the details. I don't remember the specifics but for our pirposes here let's say my estimate was $27 per unit. I had to clear any discount with the owner who said offer 20% off with a firm order and a deposit. The man's response was that 21.60 was outrageous and that he could get the same thing from another place he'd called for $8 each. I went back to my boss who said, "If he really got a quote of $8.00 each for the same item why is he still shopping?"
 
Gene I 'll agree if you have "NO PROFIT" none what so ever ,then it is better to take what you can get. However if there is any other work you can be doing why in the H*ll would you want to encourage this type of work? You can bag groceries at the local market and make more than this,and what will this encorage ? More cheap matting jobs.
How about it Bob Carter ,isn't there a point when it just isn't worth "MEETING the competitions price?"If your doing this penny anti work you can't be doing anything worth while so you must be losing and I'll be darn if I can see what good this will bring.After all even cosidering all the labor cost what about ware and tare on the equipment and yourself ? How does the pennies repay for that.This sounds like the job you suggest they take to your worst competitor and hope they'll jump on it.
BUDDY
 
C'mone you guys, give him a break. We have all had slow times when cash flow in itself seemed important to us.

We have also all gone through the temporary insanity where we decided we were going to get every job that comes through our doors. It's all just part of the growing we all go through.

If the the guy can make a hundred bucks, or even twenty bucks, it's still better than not making anything.

Remember the paper rout, you work your butt off for a month and took home $40.00 if you were lucky, but you still had $40.00 more dollars than you would have had.

Sure, it may not make good business sense, but it keeps you from going crazy until things improve.

John
 
Don't forget there are wholesale houses that buy mats for a lot less than any retailer and they blow stuff out like crazy. We have used just such companies for large jobs and, in quantity, the prices are way below anything we could touch.

The difference is they work on a whole different set of numbers than we retailers. I can't remember any of their names, but you see their ads in Decor occassionally.

But there are some deals that just don't make sense for us to try and compete
 
Nearly all matboards today are "acid-free" (at least at first.)

That doesn't make them "conservation" boards.
 
Wow. Nothing like a pricing question to get folks going, huh? My business isn't failing, nor are we interested in working for a pittance. The point of my post was to find out if there was a cheaper mat available that would make the job worth while. Apparently, there isn't. That means I wouldn't do this job with YOUR matcutter. I do know that these are conservation boards and he is getting them for the pricehe stated.

I offered to try to meet the price if it was possible. Right now, I'm getting the gravy money, charging $3.50 to tape the print to the mat and put it in a clear bag. My sales person does this in between working with customers in my satellite store.... I'll just keep doing that I guess.

Thanks for everyone's input.

Gene Williams, CPF
Mitre & Bevel
 
Heck, Gene, you're getting more for 2 strips of mounting tape and a plastic bag than some poor schluck is getting to cut the mats!

I guess you got the gravy!! ;)

Framerguy
 
I buy Artique buy the case for $4.73 and Cresent Select for $4.80. If your paying Wizard a nickel a corner add another $.20 per mat. That's a $1.40 plus labor.
If the Qty. was great enough and all the same size,color and cut, I would match the price. I would only do it in quanities of 80 mats though.
Click to expand...
Just because you pay $1.00 for something it does not mean that that is your cost, the time it took you to order unpack & put it away and then go look for it. That should all be considered part of the cost.
Cost Plus we do a lot of framing this way. He figures he can cut 60 mats in 30 minutes. So if you figure your shop rate of $40.00 an hour that would be a whooping $20.00 plus 60 x $1.40 = $84.00 which turns into $104.00. Divide $104.00 by 60 mats and you get A grand total of $1.74 you could charge for the mats. However I think you have to factor in some time for ordering the mat board unpacking it and the 20 minutes you probably spent talking to this customer then the ten minutes to take his charge card and ring him out the door. You Will see your shop time is closer to at least an hour. Which increases the cost to $124.00 Divided by 60 mats = $2.06 per mat. You have just created $40.00 worth of cash flow. If this is not enough profit then you need to refigure your shop time rate.
We take last years overhead cost to figure our shop time.
That would be all your expenses not including wages. Utilities, rent, phone, advertising, trash removal, damaged goods, taxes, snow removal, maintence, store supplies, etc. then add 10% of the cost of equipment we own add that together. Then divide it by the number of days open a year. Then divide it by the number of hours you are open a day. Then if you are paying a wage you should add that (don't forget to add payroll taxes and cost of benefits if any). That should be the least amount you should charge for just shop time.
Shop time should be refigured every year.
 
we always talk about these cases...don't bother is what comes out of it. why put yourself thru this?

first off get all the info and a sample of the mat, the customers invoice call the company and ask what kind of board it is. then tell your customer that the board is not aci free like they thought, x board is junk and no you can not do it. if they want to talk about quality and real numbers give them a card and they can back to you.

we all know a customer saids i got 50 mats for $.50. you think is this possible? why think about it? do you want to spend five days calling every company known to find out how cheap you can get mats for? the answer here is no, how will you ever make the money back that you wasted just looking around for this board? you wont. be realistic about some of this stuff.

if it sounds to good to be true it is.
d
 
I'm waiting now for a customer to come back and pick up the artwork that he left to be framed yesterday. I'll give him his check too. He called me later and said that he "discovered from a colleague" that he could have it framed somewhere else cheaper. I wouldn't come down on my price, and I'm happy that I lost this cheapskate's business--doing it for less is not an option.
 
I've read through this a couple of times (brain dead today) What about shipping? How do you figure that in?
 
There are some deals you should walk away from, but I don't know if I would agree with Art on Canvas without knowing a few more details.

Understand, I'm all about saving this sale, any sale, if I can make some money.

It looks like this might more of a philosophical decision rather than a business decision. Again, we don't know the details.

I suspect if this happened to me (and it has) the first thing I would do is really compare workorders. There is always someone willing to do it cheaper (We have underbid other stores to get business-it's called business. And I have others do the same to me). But I would sure make sure where my margins were first.

In an earlier post on this thread someone suggested to make sure to include electricity in factoring price (talk about minutae), well, what about your time and the cost of electricity (okay, I'm kidding here)? A little flexibility might just save a sale.

Be honest, this thing happens very seldom. Not fighting to keep the sale will ensure two things: you will lose the sale and probably the customer. Matching a comparative bid will probably keep the sale and probably the customer.

Again, don't know the details (and maybe this is one to let walk), but I wouldn't draw that line in the sand over principle. A little flexibility and a little salesmanship just might keep the sale.

Calling him(and reacting to the client) as cheapskate won't feed the bulldog.
 
I don't know, Bob. Your thoughts seem a little bit optimistic to me. I seriously doubt that this customer would ever become a steady customer. His price statement raises a red flag in my mind as it apparently has with others here. Just how much work and time do you expend on a job prospect such as this before it becomes an exercise in futility? I agree with you that you should always try for the sale but at some point it just isn't worth it. This is one of them. Actually, it's pretty much a moot point here as the vast majority of us have no possible way of buying the matboards for that low a price unless someone went out of business and you got a great deal on their stock. Oh, well. This is what I love about the grumble. The diverse opinions. ;) ;)
 
OK... Flog me. I read Bobs post and assumed he was still talking about the original posting.

Never mind!! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Of course it could still apply, just not as strenuously. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
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