Opinions Wanted What does "busy" mean in your shop?

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FrameMakers

FrameMakers

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Mar 20, 2001
Posts
7,395
Loc
Powell, OH
After reading the early-bird vs late-nighter thread, it made me wonder what you consider busy?

My shop is just my wife and I. I do all the designing, ordering, chopping, joining, mat cutting, mounting and digital imaging. My wife does all most all of the fitting and frame filling. We rarely work more then the normal hours we are open (10-6 Tue-Fri, 10-4 Sat) and even then find plenty of time to be on the grumble or other forums.

This year we have averaged 120 jobs a month, but we could easily take that to 200 without feeling stressed. Are our numbers low, or are we just more efficient?

Financially we are doing fine but would always like to be doing better.
 
Our shop does so much less than some I read about here.
If we get really busy, we probably do about 25 jobs a week,
but usually it's more like 10 or 15. This past May was
freakishly slow, and one week, we only had one job.
 
Since I was closed half of Nov I am at 228 YTD but it was 247 prior to Nov.

These things are hard to compare apples to apples though since I do a lot of jobs that may be printing w/ show kits or just frames that may or may not generate work orders. I also don't create work orders for some more expensive work since I will frame canvas in ready mades or make the frame while they wait and only invoice it. The majority of the printing and mounting that is done for the college students does not generate a work order since I tend do see 20-40 of them over 2 days while they wait. A shop with 4 people working as hard as I do and only completing 100 per month may be just as busy.
 
FrameMakers said:
This year we have averaged 120 jobs a month, but we could easily take that to 200 without feeling stressed. Are our numbers low, or are we just more efficient?
Click to expand...

On an average month you are doing about 5-1/4 jobs a day for two people.

I guess with two in the shop you are able to get more jobs in and out faster. Compared to just a single person working a shop, like the owner. Who has to wear all the hats and and do all the juggling. Not an easy task.
But we all manage. I average about two to three jobs a day and it's only because as I stated above. With two people I could average 5+ jobs a day.
We could all use more work and more money, but the reality is our own limits and what the market for your area is. Shops doing more high end work do less jobs and hopefully make more per job. Average shops do more general work with an occasional high end piece. It just depends on your reputation and marketing to bring in work. Sounds as though you are busy every day and steady with those type of numbers. Keep it up, it can only get better.
 
We are a two person shop also. Our Numbers may be a bit different than yours because about 50% of our business is art and home/wall decor.
As for the framing, we average about 7 jobs a day. Figuring a 6 day week that's 42 per week and about 160-175 per month. This is in our busy season, which is normally Nov thru April.

In off season we drop to about 1/2 of that, but still stay as busy as we want so we can enjoy the summer free of tourists. We are big beach and fishing people and like the uncrowded waters in the summer.

Before the economy tanked we had 2 full time framers and 1 extra sales person in the gallery and the above numbers were about 2.5 to 3 times greater prior to 2007.

To keep the answer simple we consider less than 3 framing jobs a day as slow, 5-7 would be normal and over 7 would be "busy".
 
We are a 1 1/2 person shop, and hire as many as 8 temps do to big commercial jobs. However, most of our work is custom, which includes: 1) Printing/matting/stretching for artists 2) 3-d art in acrylic cases 3) Printing for commercial jobs 4) photo restoration 5) large panoramic 6) general framing.

In addition, we provide art hanging service and sell our own artwork. This year we never caught up to all of our work. However, at the end of September we were down to 2 jobs on the board, but never made it to zero. We average about 40 jobs per month, not counting large commercial jobs.

May and September were our slowest months. July and October were our busiest so far.
 
I have 2 full time framers and 1 part-time, in addition to myself. I used to have more staff, but we all know how the economy has been.

We are open 6 full days a week. We plan for 9 frames a day, and allow for approximately 11. With the economy being what it has been, we are averaging less than that over this year. Busy for us is 60-70 frames a week; we are really hopping those weeks.

In the 3 weeks before Christmas we typically complete approximately 210 orders each year, which at a guess is probably around 250 frames.
 
There's never enough consistancy in the kinds of work we do to make much sense of how many pieces we do. One ticket could be for a production job of 100+ pieces that we knocked out in 2-3 days, and the next could be for a single frame that included printing and a bunch of additional labor so it took almost a week to complete. Regardless, we are rarely working at capacity these days.
 
My YTD average so far this year is 16 frames per week. I have really begun to feel the effects of the "busy" season the past couple of weeks, and this past week completed 29 full frame orders.

It is just me here through the day, and lately, I do not get a lot of uninterupeted time to build frames, so my husband has been coming in to help me after hours and on the weekends. That makes him a total saint in my eyes. I feel like I am putting in the hours working around 60-65 hours the last several weeks, but he is averaging well over 80 hours. Plus we have kids that are in sports too, so that takes at least a few nights a week that we are only able to work until 6 so that we can make their games. He is also taking the week before Christmas off from his full time job so that he can help me to make sure we are able to take in and complete as many last minute jobs as possible.

So far, this Christmas season seems to be busier than last years at this time. I am happy for that, and hopefully it will be that way for everyone here. I also hope that we will all be able to enjoy a little rest when the hustle is over :thumbsup:
 
It's busier here too; but, same as you; we have to drive kids around as well so I can't always stay too long at work.

This week our Quentin has three school concerts (he does choir and clarinet in band) and we have to be there at 6:30 each night.

I am planning to stay late the week after though and today is quiet so am catching up a little. (have things drying now, so good excuse to grumble a little and eat lunch quickly)
 
Today was our first seriously busy day of the Christmas season. 36 orders taken, 13 framing jobs completed. 10:15pm and it's time to go home and feed the cat!
 
FrameMakers said:
After reading the early-bird vs late-nighter thread, it made me wonder what you consider busy?

This year we have averaged 120 jobs a month, but we could easily take that to 200 without feeling stressed. Are our numbers low, or are we just more efficient?
Click to expand...

Last month we wrote and produced about 3-4 x your monthly total work orders, some of which are multiples, but we have 10 framers and average 5-6 framers/designers/owners per day, 7 days per week. It takes a lot of us to produce the volume, and I would be the first to admit that we may not always be efficient because each person performs such a variety of tasks. We are also printing, doing photo restoration, and shipping a small amount of art purchased from our web site.

For two people your numbers are not low and you are very efficient. Here, we as owners work morning, noon and night most days per week.

I would not consider our numbers a very busy month, but it was a healthy month. (These totals do not include corporate jobs which can vary in multiples of between about 10 to 350 pieces.)

Busy for us would be about 600-700 retail frames per month and that would be really hectic.

Let us know how your total production goes for December.
 
Kirstie said:
Busy for us would be about 600-700 retail frames per month and that would be really hectic.
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I average around 100 jobs a month. I do everything. I could do more, but I guess I need to figure out advertising to get more people in. Everything cost so much, and the return is very low. It seems the advertisers make out better than I do off of their marketing.

600 framing jobs to be a good month... wow. That is something to try to be achieved. Not sure Id want the hassle though if I got it.
 
Well apparently I SUCk...... I dont even have half of what most of you have. :icon11:
 
Puppiesonacid said:
I average around 100 jobs a month. I do everything. I could do more, but I guess I need to figure out advertising to get more people in. Everything cost so much, and the return is very low. It seems the advertisers make out better than I do off of their marketing.

600 framing jobs to be a good month... wow. That is something to try to be achieved. Not sure Id want the hassle though if I got it.
Click to expand...

There is something to be said for a small and highly efficient operation. I guarantee that our profit margins are lower than most businesses here because of staffing related costs. Once you get to a certain level its like walking on a high wire. You have to have the volume to stay balanced. And this is just one shop. We never expanded because we were never sure that we could duplicate the volume and stay upright.
 
Kirstie, Been there done that and I jumped off the high wire and survived the fall.

Managing 10 people in itself is a full time+ job. More people also means more fires to put out.

As to those that are feeling a little low, this is not a contest, there are now winners for being bigger and certainly no losers for being smaller. Some of the best framers I know had little shops with the same issues as everyone else. You would just assume from the quality of their work that they also run a bang up business. Often this is not the case at all.

Just remember
"The grass is always greener over the septic tank."
 
blackiris said:
Well apparently I SUCk...... I dont even have half of what most of you have. :icon11:
Click to expand...

You just live in a much smaller area is what it is. Hopefully rent is comparable to what you bring in.

i think 50k cars drive by my store a day at least according to some chart i read.
 
blackiris said:
Well apparently I SUCk...... I dont even have half of what most of you have. :icon11:
Click to expand...

Nic; I don't either. It's just me here; I could not handle that volume by myself and stay somewhat sane. Besides that; you and I both have our hands full at home with young kids as well.

If I would take in one order a day; that would be plenty busy for me. My frame orders are usually more complicated and higher ticket lately and more labor needed.

I don't put in all the hours as some of you do either....I might when the kids get older and it serves a purpose. But I don't like being alone at night in the store and so far; it is not needed.
Having said that; next week I will be staying later every night to try to work ahead of the schedule. I am caught up...now I want to get ahead.
 
"Busy" is in the eye of the beholder.

I want to do just enough to keep me out of trouble and supplement my Social Security a little and enough to buy a few new toys.

I could just retire and would be OK but I would be so bored, I would probably take a header off the nearest tall building within a month.

I actually stopped work on a full scale site that I started developing a couple of years ago because I decided I don't want the additional business. The rough site (about half done) is viewable at http://dev.qualityartandframe.com/. I had to put the disclaimer at the top because I was starting to get orders on a development site (dev. instead of www. )that I told the search engines not to trawl.

In any case, in November I got 40 orders for a total of 95 frames. That was enough for me. Gets me out of the house for 2-3 hours a day and that's all I want.
 
Guess I am busy......... with my 14 orders....... trying to do everythiing with a baby at my feet or in my arms........ fun fun fun
Especially when she talks over me when I'm taking an order.......... :faintthud:
 
When we talk orders are we talking frames or orders? One order may have two hundred frames on it. That same order may have the same or less profitability as an order with one large closed corner frame.

Kind of hard to compare apples and oranges.
 
Dave, for me this is the number that FrameReady shoots out. It would include every work order that I have written and the quantity that is put in. So a work order that has a quantity of 10 is counted as 10. This also means that a job that is a drymount only or a mat only also counts as an order.

What I was trying to find out is at what point do people feel busy vs normal. I have also heard privately from some suppliers that they feel a shop is doing OK at 20 orders per week.
 
November was our best month in 3 years. I did not count my jobs, but I know it was over 100. I do all the framing while my partner words the front end. I found myslelf getting stressed and making some mistakes due to the volume.

I also had 6 rush orders of multiple frames. Of those, 3 of them didn't bother to pick up their orders until days and weeks after their imposed deadline. I think there is a PITA charge waiting for them in the future.
 
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