Do you sell to the public?

About twice a month for umpteen years, we have fielded many telephone calls often heralded by the now familiar question, "Do you sell to the public? ".  The short answer is YES! In fact, we always have, and for many years. Retail only, never wholesale. Thus, we doth ponder, why the question?  Most likely, this all harks back to the "old" days when retailers and wholesalers were quite ran and operated as distinct and disparate entities. Shopkeepers kept their shops retailing directly to the public and wholesalers ran factories to only wholesale to their shopkeeper customers. In this traditional, but rapidly fading commercial or business model,  wholesalers, or distributors, werethe only ones who possessed the capital, the knowledge and the contacts to import goods from an overseas country into their own.

How Wholesaling in Australia Began

Think of the so-called, English Tea,  grown, harvested and cured overwhelmingly in the Indian Subcontinent but shipped, unloaded, sorted and distributed or wholesaled to hundreds and thousands of small shopkeepers throughout the British Isles.  And so it was for many industries and thousands of disparate goods.

Nevertheless, the Australian picture framing industry , comprising mainly of the manufacturing and selling of photo frames and picture frames developed somewhat differently. Abundant in natural resources, not short of woodworkers of all kinds or small entrepreneurs,  Australia begat dozens of small, medium and large  picture framing sheds, backyards, shops, workshops and factories in nearly every town, city and State.

These small businesses, family enterprises, pretty much continued and lasted until the age of the internet, with the year 2000 beginning to witness  dramatic changes on the picture framing landscape.  The turn of the century brought forth the online explosion where pretty much everything and anything could not only be purchased online but delivered to one's door as well.

The average Mr and Mrs Customer began to ask themselves, why trudge downtown, or uptown,  to visit shops or stores, for picture framing consultations, then what 2-4 weeks and then finally return t o pick up complete frames when many or most of these could simply and quickly be purchase online with a few click of a computer  mouse?

How Wholesaling in Australia is Ending

The penny dropped for us around around that time when  a Staff member took a phone call from a Sydney Customer for custom frameless clip frames inquiry.   Yes, we replied, we could do it in two weeks for such and such a price.  Why! Cried the outraged Customer,  I can get it what I want from China in less time and for half your cost!   It goes without saying that we lost the Customer and that was that.

Nevertheless that small incident taught us a huge lesson, the world was changing and picture framing would never be the same.  Fast forward  20 plus years and the local picture framing industry has changed considerably.

Most of the smaller mouldings, equipment, and stock frames importers, distributors or wholesalers such as Lawdex, Framers' Equipment Co., Marks & Co. , Samuel Winston, All States Frames and Megawood, to name a few,  have either ceased trading, exited the picture framing industry, merged with others, or re-invented themselves elsewhere.

The cause of all this is commercial rationalization brutally simple.  Less and less customers buy their picture frames from custom picture framers.  Instead, the buy more and more picture frames either online, or at the big department stores.

And the end reason is simpler still, Customer do so because it's cheaper.  Not looking, being,  or made better, or of a higher quality, just cheaper.

Nevertheless and regardless as to why most Customers have changed and are changing  their shopping habits and preferences, on important supply chain consequence of this is that there remain fewer and fewer genuine wholesalers.

Well, so much so for a concise history of Australian wholesaling one might say, but what's that got to do with "selling to the public"?    The question relates to traditional wholesaling by which wholesalers only sold to other re-sellers, never to end -users.

Thus a wholesaler, say,  Picture Frames Wholesale Pty Ltd would only sell to other picture frames or picture framing retailers who in turn would sell them by retail to their Customers, the end users.

In other words, Customers who wanted picture frames for their homes or offices, or artists even, were seen as end users, could not buy from direct from a wholesaler, and could only but them  but only from other retail stores typically located in shopping strips or the local neighbourhood.

And the reason for long-established commercial system is,  simply enough - money.  A wholesaler would land, say,  the below 18x24 black wood poster frames for $5 each.

The wholesaler would then wholesale the same frames to his or her account Customers, nearly always, shopkeepers and smaller retailers, for say, $9.99 each. They, in turn, would re-sell the same frames to end-users, their retail Customers, for say, $19.99 each.

So, everybody made some profit and a reasonable living by this system. Wholesalers, generally, never sold to the public, or to the end users. If they did, word would quickly get around the trade and the wholesaler would  begin losing  his Customers.

The reason for this is plain enough,  a retailer could not possibly compete on price with a wholesaler.  And this is why, if a genuine wholesaler is asked "do you sell to the public?"  the answer should always be a simple and unequivocal, no.

That being said, PictureFrame.com.au has never been and is not a wholesaler, this when we are asked " do you sell to the public?" we can sincerely and truthfully reply, yes, of course we do.

What To Do and Not To Do When Ordering Picture Frames

 

	List of Do's		List of Don'ts
✓	Do check measure your artwork before ordering picture frames online.  Frames don't always ship well and these can break or get damaged in transit. Ascertaining  the correct size obviates the need to return goods.	❌	Don't buy department stores frames, take them to a picture framer and ask him or her to customize or modify them for you. The materials and methods used to churn out off-the-shelf frames aren't solid, reliable, durable or of good enough quality to permit workmanlike modifications .
✓	Do consider acrylic-glazed poster frames for large artwork. the glazing is light, portable and unbreakable	❌	Don't ask for Plexiglass in place of clear glass when ordering a custom frame thinking that it will be cheaper. This is a common mistake.  Cut-to-size Plexiglass is actually 4 to 6 times dearer than clear glass to buy and can only  be cut by plastic fabricators with a special,  dedicated beam or panel saw.
✓	Do make sure a picture frame is shippable before ordering.  Many Customers order, large, Customer-Collect only, poster frames to be shipped to them which we then have to cancel. We have bold, red-text warnings in place against this practice which are not always heeded.	❌	Don't look for discount, ready-made picture frames online with museum, conservation or ant-glare glazing. This is another, often-seen, mistake. These glazes are up to 10 time more expensive than sheet glass. No manufacturer uses these materials to mass-produce frames. It would make the end product simply too expensive  to sell to the public.
✓	Do take you artwork with you if visiting a picture frame for a custom picture framing consultation.  A picture framer will need not only to measure your art, but also,  to inspect its texture, the backing, the media and check for friable materials, so as furnish a picture framing quotation.	❌	Don't ask for a custom or bespoke picture frame to be made for you while-you-wait or by the next day.  It's not commonly known that picture frames are held together by ordinary, wood glue.  And like all glues, it needs at least a day, if not two, at least to cure.  If the glue has not cured properly, the glued joints might fail and the frame may loosen, spring or even break.