Most of this discussion seems alien to me; I can’t believe a statement like “I’m not convinced it’s less expensive to buy length as opposed to chop when considerations of inventory capital, waste and whatever are taken into account". That sounds like distributor brainwashing to me. Of course it’s less expensive; it’s also way more efficient. We’re ordering Décor today and I’m looking down the price sheet: 9862 is $2.43 chop, I’m paying $.62. That 9862 is arriving along with 2,000 ft of other molding with a freight charge of $247 making a freight charge of something like $.12/foot for a total cost of $.74. We’ll sell it for $4.50/ft., a heck of a deal for our customer and a heck of a deal for us at a markup of a bit over 6. What would the chop price be? $8.00, 10.00? Surely everyone can see there is a problem here with the prevalent paradigm. There’s a huge advantage in buying length!
90% of our sales come from our length molding, 10% from chop and we tell our customers they’re not getting as good a deal choosing a chop frame as they would with in stock molding. Some people don’t care, but most do.
When we were planing our business it never occured to us to base it on chop service from a distributor. We started with about 50ft. each of around 100 patterns, 1000 sheets of mat board. Everything we sold we made from our inventory. We kept adding patterns and increasing footage, always getting the best or second best deal from the supplier. The notion of being in the framing business without a chopper or saw was, well, alien. We don't have a policy of a 6" minimun rail; we can do between 3 and 3.5 depending on the width of the molding.
I think there is a lot of really bad business advice out there. Fortunately, no "advisor" told us to limit our inventory. We didn't get "educated" to the virture of depending on chop services at trade shows. We sell chops, we can't avoid it, but they're a small, unencouraged part of our business. Also, probably 90% of the problems we face with frame making comes from chops, delays to our customers resulting from out of stocks, wrong size legs, damage in shipment, poor chopping. Our frame maker hates to see chops arriving (we do about 10 chops a week).
There's no question chops are a good deal for distributors (how else could they afford to deliver them for "free"?)and I can see no reason why they'd help a customer shift from chops to lengths, and if you buy length on the chop model, order just enough molding for each job, I guess it is a toss up between chop and length but that's not the proper model.
There is a risk in buying large quantities of molding, but if you're good at this business you should know what will and will not sell in your market. In a market economy, specialized knowledge (in our case, knowing what patterns to stock)is the most powerful factor in success. Specialized knowledge (and good taste, another form of specialized knowledge)allows us to take an educated risk and buy length. If we're wrong, we fail (and probably should); if we're right, we gain an advantage.
I think a lot of shops like mine began as FIY shops where inventory was necessary. These shops prospered because they offered low prices and instant gratification as well as a sense of accomplishment on the customers' part in return for a smaller selection of molding to choose from. FIY is a RPITA so they moved away from it but kept and developed the knowledge needed to buy in length.
- whether to buy a used Morso Chopper and order length; or continue buying chop. Your comments will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
