Custom Picture Framing Costs and You
I seem to get asked this question all the time, "How can you claim to have lower prices than other framing stores?" It's quite simple actually. It boils down to costs that get passed on to you, the end customer. It's hard for a framing store to sell "cheap picture frames" if they have a lot of overhead. Here's a good graphic that shows the difference between larger framing stores (e.g. franchises) and us...click on the graphic for a larger view.
Here's a description of each cost component:
- Initial Setup Costs: These are costs that go into setting up the store itself. This includes any furniture, equipment, and all those pretty decorations. This can get pretty expensive and is recovered as a cost to the end customer.
- Franchise Fees: This is a monthly cost that the franchisee pays the national franchise company for using the franchise brand and know how. Again, another cost that must be recovered.
- Royalty Fees: This is a percentage of total sales that the franchisee has to pay the national franchise company. For example, if the store sells $100.00 a month and have a 3% franchise fee, they will have to pay the franchise company $3.00 for the month. How do you think they'll recover this? From the customer of course!
- Marketing Costs: See all those Value-Pak, Sunday Circulars, and newspaper ads advertising the Franchise framing store? That costs money...a lot of money. Yet another cost that gets charged to the customer.
- Operations Overhead: This includes paying rent, staff, and other third party services. Larger stores have higher overhead. It's that simple
- Onsite Management Experience: Framing franchise store owners pay to get formal training from the Franchise company. This training is good and comprehensive but is no substitute for over 20 years of framing experience (i.e. Buckhead Custom Frames.) Making poor decisions, due to lack of experience, about customer framing options is a cost to the customer.
It should be noted that not ALL franchise companies have this entire cost structure in place, but, I think it's safe to say that this is a fairly comprehensive view. Next time you're at a national franchise store ask them how they recover all their overhead and franchise costs...I don't think they're going to say "We don't" as they're not a charity.
At Buckhead Custom Frames, we don't have the same cost responsibilities that our franchise friends have and thus, don't have to pass on these on to our customers. We make sure that we use the best quality materials (the same, if not better than our national franchise store friends), stay a locally owned business, and rely on word of mouth, and repeat customers to continue to be Atlanta's #1 framing store! Feel free to contact me at buckheadcustomframes@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Be sure to learn more about our products and services by clicking on the links below:
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