# Pricing for trade prices unframed and framed



## bowla99 (Nov 12, 2019)

Hi there! I am new here and hoping to find some help to ease the amount of head scratching I do on a day to day basis - (not from nits)

I have so many questions that crop up and nobody I know can help me with. I was wondering if anybody here sells prints of their watercolours direct to independently owned stores and if they did, if they could advise me on profit I can expect to make/how much of a mark up etc. I have been selling them unframed in sizes A4 and A3 and don't have any problems here - I am happy with the trade price being about 50% of what I actually sell them for myself. My problem is that a specific stockist is asking me to supply some framed and I don't know how much profit is ok to make on the frames that I am buying. I know everyone sets there own prices but I am unsure what to do as I don't know what is considered an acceptable price to charge a shop for a store bought frame that I will make a bit of profit on. Say the frame costs £7.50 for me to buy in, would I charge double to the shop who then sells on for even more?!! My head hurts - I am probably making it more complicated than it is. Double seems a bit much for profit on a store bought frame but I wanted to see what others thought. 

Many thanks,


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## picassolite (Dec 10, 2016)

I would ask for double ... and if they don't balk ... you are home free.


On the other hand ... if you ask for double and they look at you as if you had 2 heads ... say nothing.


In the negotiation game ... he/she who speaks first ... loses the negotiation.


You want to appear as if ... you always ask for double.


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## Mullanphy (Apr 25, 2020)

Why make a profit, at all, on the frames? Oh, yeah, greed. 🤣 You didn't make them, so there is no labor involved in that part. But you'll probably mount the paintings, so material + labor is all that should be charged for framing.

If the frame costs you $10 and it takes you 5 minutes to mount, multiply by your labor rate and add them together. That should be what you charge for the frame.

$50/hr labor rate = $4.16/5 minutes, so charge them $14.16 for that part of the transaction.

What markup per print? What does the print cost to create - from inception, to creating the art, through printing, delivery, etc.? One must know the costs before markup can be determined.

If anyone is interested, I'll dig out an old white paper on how to price art and post it in a new thread.


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