B
bean
Guest
I’m helping my in-laws with the business side of their custom framing shop. They have what I would call a wholesale custom framing business that caters to photographers, galleries and gift shops. Their operation is in an extremely small town (less than a thousand) and they have been in there for about a year and a half. They have a storefront, but currently it is not being used. The majority of their space goes into manufacturing they own moulding, inventory, and custom framing. They have two other full-time employees and the usual cost of custom framing. Revenues tripled last year, but there is a need to improve their bottom line. That’s were I come in, unfortunately I know nothing about framing. We our looking at a couple of different “opportunities” and I was wondering if any of you had experience or advise to give.
1. A moulding company that they have a discount agreement with has offered to turn their regional customers over so that they could operate as a distributor. The problem with that is inventory and employee cost; they cannot afford a mistake. They have the space, but fear meeting shipping, customer service and quantity expectations.
2. Although they do not have an active storefront, they are getting an increase number of walk in, retail orders (about 20 people or so a week). They would like to capitalize on that by having a galley of regional artists framed in their store. I have made some calls and received very good responses. However, the downside is that their storefront is a long way from being presentable and by opening a storefront they would risk the relationship with some of their biggest wholesale customers. Most are already uncomfortable that customers are starting to go around them and come directly to the store. But, and there always seems to be a but, these customers are in larger surrounding communities and we could not compete if they went to another framer. One thing we could do is supply the framed prints to some of these locations and sell them out of their locations. That would not jeopardize the custom framing business with these locations, but we would lose control.
3. They manufacture their own poplar and oak mouldings, which is their most popular mouldings. They have the means to do this on a large scale, but I wonder if there is a market for simple poplar and oak moulding.
I would appreciate any input from anyone with experience in the types of ventures I’ve listed above or maybe experience as a small town framer or wholesaler custom framer.
1. A moulding company that they have a discount agreement with has offered to turn their regional customers over so that they could operate as a distributor. The problem with that is inventory and employee cost; they cannot afford a mistake. They have the space, but fear meeting shipping, customer service and quantity expectations.
2. Although they do not have an active storefront, they are getting an increase number of walk in, retail orders (about 20 people or so a week). They would like to capitalize on that by having a galley of regional artists framed in their store. I have made some calls and received very good responses. However, the downside is that their storefront is a long way from being presentable and by opening a storefront they would risk the relationship with some of their biggest wholesale customers. Most are already uncomfortable that customers are starting to go around them and come directly to the store. But, and there always seems to be a but, these customers are in larger surrounding communities and we could not compete if they went to another framer. One thing we could do is supply the framed prints to some of these locations and sell them out of their locations. That would not jeopardize the custom framing business with these locations, but we would lose control.
3. They manufacture their own poplar and oak mouldings, which is their most popular mouldings. They have the means to do this on a large scale, but I wonder if there is a market for simple poplar and oak moulding.
I would appreciate any input from anyone with experience in the types of ventures I’ve listed above or maybe experience as a small town framer or wholesaler custom framer.